marlowemuses | If you were Dracula, I'd be letting you take that bite

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If you were Dracula, I'd be letting you take that bite

Lenore's immediately curious about their 'guest' in the dungeons from what Striga had to say: a swordswoman of exceptional skill, the most satisfying fight Striga had enjoyed in years and she only regretted that the woman was so tired out already before Striga got to her, if she'd been fresher in the fight and had vampiric advantages, she would have been a 'true opponent'.

The soldiers who had survived the battle spoke of it like something out of legend, to the point that Lenore almost had to roll her eyes at the way the story was already getting embroidered and exaggerated. (She thought it very unlikely that their captive was eight feet tall with eyes of flame.) There was little useful information from any of them--run down castle practically in ruins, aging retainers, decrepit king and queen, none of them even healthy enough to save for feeding purposes. Morana had plenty to say about that, the waste of losing forty-seven good soldiers for the gain of an ugly, crumbling castle in an ugly, barren land and if she'd known it was going to be this much bother they would have just gone around. Carmilla had already expressed her opinion in the original conversation, and the entirety of that opinion was a disgusted scoff.

Thus armed with as much information as she was going to get, Lenore dressed herself elegantly and went to the kitchens to collect a basket of freshly baked spice cakes, temptingly aromatic, before she descended to the dungeon.

Only one of the cells was filled at this time--none of the sisters were especially inclined toward taking prisoners unless they were of political value in some way, and their food captives were kept elsewhere under relatively minimal restraint.

"Well," Lenore comments, stopping in front of the dungeon cell and looking over the captive within with interest, chained on her knees. A heavy collar around her throat was chained to a ring in the floor in front of her, while her wrists were pulled out to either side and secured to more heavy iron rings and the cuffs on her ankles were attached to a ball and chain. "I don't think I've ever seen anyone in quite that many chains."

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Gross manipulation. This is playing dirty, entirely unfair-- some part of her registers that this may be what's happening, but there's also the heady, unfamiliar feeling of having someone agree with her. Agree, and even validate. So Gideon's expression may be cold and mean when Lenore begins to re-cuff her, but the vampire will experience no resistance as she reinstates the chains. Gideon allows herself to turn pliable in the other woman's grasp, only winces a little as metal meets raw flesh again. The salve helped, but it has not entirely healed.

She contents herself at first with making vicious faces at any of the guards that stray near, but it swiftly becomes clear they're trying their utmost to pretend she doesn't exist. It's inevitable then, that after a while the silky caress of Lenore's air against skin insinuates itself into her consciousness, the scent of her both bright and deep, a world away from the grime of the cage. Her eyes slide sideways toward the woman now poised so close to her, soaking up the sight through furtive glances. She can see the rise and fall of her chest from this angle, perceives the rosebud softness of her lips… Fuck, but she's hot. Gideon feels her breath catch in her throat, and swiftly she cuts her gaze to the guards.

"Man, are you guys slow," she says it viciously, if only to ease her own mounting tension.

"Shh," Lenore clucks, scolding but mostly playful and fond. She also wants this task done as quickly as possible, though for different reasons than her pet's.

Finally, the guards trail back out, taking the soiled and empty buckets and leaving behind a couple of buckets of steaming water for her further use. When they're out of the cell and the door is locked again, Lenore picks the keys back up and unlocks one cuff, moves to the other side to unlock the other cuff, then pulls a third key from her pocket and unlocks the collar with especial gentleness, drawing it carefully from around her neck and setting it on the floor.

"There we are," she murmurs, gentle and kind, and then rises up again, gathering the blanket. She picks a clean and dry section of floor and spreads the blanket out on it, then takes a seat on one side, leaving most of the blanket for her pet to decide how close she wants to sit. "Go ahead and eat, Nightie. I brought cards for when you're done. Do you want to teach me some of your favorites, or shall I teach you some new ones?"

She says it like a genuine question, but she strongly suspects that her pet may not actually know any card games, so she phrases it in order to make it easy to avoid that admission.

By some miracle - one which Gideon herself would be unable to explain and is, in fact, not really thinking about right now - she actually does shhh. She stays silent and intensely aware of Lanore's presence beside her until the guards finally fuck off, extends her stillness into Lenore’s unlocking the cuffs. Rolling her tender wrists one at a time, it takes her a second to realise just how close the vampire's hands are to her throat and-- oh.

Gideon hikes one brow hard toward her hairline, surprised and incredulous in equal measure. She'd said cuffs or collar some indeterminate amount of time before, there'd been no mention of both. Brave of her, or stupid, or perhaps just infuriatingly self-assured--

--yet Gideon makes no move toward her, doesn't lurch forward and grasp her captor by the throat. Instead, she shifts her neck from one side to the other, slow and deliberate, feeling into the full of extent of the pain. She feels blessedly light suddenly, hadn’t quite realised just how much of a deadweight that thing had been.

"What's this, we're playing picnics now?" the sullen, incredulous tone remains, even as she moves to sit at the blanket's furthest edge and extends a hand for the tray, "have you forgotten about the tit-ripping already?"

"I didn't forget," Lenore replies, with just enough weight to carry the implication that she won't be forgetting anytime soon. "I just don't think that remains high on your list of things you'd like to do to my tits."

They are such nice tits, after all, so prettily displayed in her shimmering gown with the plunging keyhole neckline. And yes, she had noticed Nightie noticing her. Lenore had already suspected that her sensuality absolutely was doing her some favors here, but it was nice to have it confirmed.

She laid out some cards, starting to explain a game that was popular among the guards here. It was straightforward to learn, but allowed for a reasonable amount of strategy so that Lenore could get a sense of how quickly Nightie learned things that didn't involve stabbing, and how good she was with applying learned information.

"The fuck would I want with a vampire's cold-ass tits," the words are furiously muttered half-beneath her breath, but it's impossible to hide the heat that rises in her. Her tawny-brown cheeks are suffused with an incriminating flush of red. Impossible, now Lenore has gone ahead and said it, for Gideon's eyes not to skim over the plunging neckline once again. She can see the generous curve of them in tantalising detail through the lacy, keyhole detailing, the gentle rise and fall of them that matches the rhythm of Lenore's breathing--

--it's just the briefest of glances before her gaze falls away and she pretends to be intensely occupied by the business of eating, but enough of one to make her think fuuuuuuck and for her breath to hitch just slightly. Withered and marked by the plague - all, of course, aside from herself - there hadn't been a sight like that in all of Drearburh.

She's grateful for the distraction of both sustenance and instruction, so remains silent as Lenore explains the game (if only because her mouth is otherwise occupied). It seems simple enough - she's not a complete moron despite what she would have people believe - and now that she has a distraction more complicated than counting the fucking stones in the walls, she's feeling quietly keen.

"Yeah, okay. I think I've got it," she says, and this time her voice lacks its earlier bite, sounding halfway towards agreeable.

"They're actually not that cold," Lenore comments, lifting her fingers to her neckline and drifting them idly over the upper curve of her breast. "I'm only two hundred"--you know, only two hundred--"which is very young for a vampire. Young enough that I still crave warmth, and my body holds on to heat. I eat more human food than blood, and that also helps keep me warmer. My heart beats, sending blood through my body--slower than yours, to be sure, but several times a minute."

She knows that Nightie doesn't want to hear this and will probably say something crass, but Lenore wants her to know. She wants to make herself seem as human as possible. Relatable. Desirable. She offers her hand, palm up, though she expects her pet to ignore it. "I'm not much cooler than a human woman with poor circulation."

Once Nightie finishes eating, Lenore gathers up the cards that were being used face-up for examples, and shuffles. Her hands are deft and elegant, though they're small enough and the deck is large enough that she has to compromise a little for how she handles them, adapting her shuffle in ways that someone with larger hands or a smaller deck wouldn't have to do.

She deals the cards between them on the blanket, sets the deck between them, and picks up her hand.

Gideon only stares at her over a mouthful of food as her captor insists she's only young-- at nineteen, two hundred sounds positively ancient. And yet here she is, sitting before her with her voluptuous breasts and her smooth white skin, when she'd seen fifty-year-olds in Drearburh who looked little better than withered skeletons. She ignores the extended hand with, perhaps, a degree of predictability. Her eyes slide over it though, the pale and slender fingers, remembers the soft, cool press of the palm when it had briefly cupped her face. She kinda wants to touch it, to see how it would feel in her broader hand. It's for this reason - rather than revulsion or deliberate insult - that she feigns indifference and focuses on her food. It's fucking weird, isn't it? To crave the physical attention of someone who has her locked up in a cage?

Lenore deals the cards just as she's finishing her meal - more swiftly than before, and with less care now she's less afraid of throwing up - and she pushes the tray aside to give them more room to play. She copies her captor, picking up the hand that she's been dealt and surveying it impassively.

"You know," she says as she does this, "two hundred is actually fucking ancient beyond all reason. Congratulations I guess, for not looking like a rotting old corpse."

Perhaps she just wants to dispel the thoughts of Lenore's hand in hers from her touch-starved mind.

"Thank you," Lenore says, giving her a sweetly cheerful smile, knowing full well that it will be a more maddening response than any possible quip she might shoot back.

She plays a few hands, adjusting her own strategy to her opponent's, giving Nightie just enough of a challenge but with still a possibility that she might win, and she's still trying to gauge just how clever her new pet is, after all.

"That's enough for now," Lenore states, rising to her feet and leaving the cards behind. "I'll come back later. Any last requests before I go, for favors or comforts?"

Fucking maddening, that's what it is. She'd have had a reaction in her own Kingdom, were she to say similar things to the retainers or her teacher or - God forbid - anyone within the royal family itself. She's aiming for return quips, fire for fire, or perhaps a torrent of abuse so loud and so long she'll still be congratulating herself on her stellar personality long after Lenore has to be removed from the room. This is...different. Just makes her want to try harder somehow, which leaves her with a strange feeling she doesn’t know how to name.

But they play the game, and Gideon pays attention. Finds it easy enough to learn because she's interested, if only due to a dire lack of stimulation during her forced stay here. So she'll never be a scholar or a master tactician, but she has more of a handle on herself than she'd ever overtly admit to. There are a few infuriating moments where she comes so close to winning, only for Lanore to beat her at the last, and when her captor calls an end to the game there's a small detonation of disappointment in her. Surely just because she hasn't won yet, and not because the hours will seem empty once the vampire has gone.

"The fuck? Oh, sure. I know your game. You knew I was like, one hand away from handing you your ass," she rolls her eyes expansively, "you're gonna leave the collar off, though? It's kiiiinda overkill, just saying. Like sure, I'm hot stuff with a sword, but I can't just magic myself out of a cage."

There’s a request in there somewhere, disguised under a question.

"Mhm, you were so close," Lenore agrees, impishly teasing, holding her fingers just a hair apart and squinting. "I'll have to keep changing up the games I teach you if I ever want to stay ahead."

She won't, she'll only change up the games for their mutual entertainment. Having a challenge will be interesting, even though she expects it will be quite a few games of strategy before her pet can properly challenge her, but the process to get there promises to be enjoyable.

Not bothering to respond to the second part, Lenore just strolls out through the bars. She whirls into mist a moment before she hits them, and then solidifies again on the other side, glancing back with a wiggle of her fingers by way of 'goodbye', now that she's revealed that she'd never once needed to go through the process of unlocking and locking the cage door. Her pet can't magic her way out of a cage, but Lenore absolutely can.

"You fucking milk-coloured asshole," she's heard the stories of course; vampires can transform into blizzards of bats, they can leap the height of buildings, blah blah blah. Evidently, though, there's some truth to it, and yet her captor has been going through that whole charade of carefully locking and unlocking her cell-- for what? Fuck if Gideon understands, and so Lenore is left with her colourful parting words in baffled retaliation.

But! She's been granted a longer leash, some freedom to move, and a pack of cards that make the drawn-out hours more interesting than counting stones. Feeling better fed and better rested than she has in an indeterminate stretch of time, she'll fill the hours until she's next visited with crunching her body into sit-ups and press-ups, trying to feel out the limits of her returning strength. With trying to get a better feel for the cards so she can beat Lenore's ass at them next time.

Lenore's not too worried about the expletives hurled at her back. It's clear that vulgarity is just the default for Nightie, so one just has to translate the degree of vulgarity to determine the actual emotional state.

She stays away longer this time, not wanting to establish the idea that she's waiting upon her pet's pleasure. It's her prerogative as to whether she has time to spare.

This time, for the midnight meal, a guard brings the tray and places it outside the bars of the cell, out of reach at first but then pushing it over to be flush with the bars using her sword. She just leaves it there outside the bars, within reach but making no effort to carry it inside the way Lenore would have done. Gideon will just have to eat through the bars.

Lenore arrives late in the night, close again to morning. She carries another tray of food, but she also sets it down outside the bars, then phases through them as she did before. Bringing anything through with her is too much trouble. She bothers to do it with her clothing, to keep her hair perfect, but she knows both of those things thoroughly. "Doing all right, my darling Nightmare? Need anything?"

There's only so much time one can spend running through a limited version of drill and looking at cards before boredom sets in. Accustomed to burning away long, lonely hours with intense exercise, this would have been fine-- if she'd been in a state to keep it up. She's feeling better, but a few good meals, a good wash, and some salve don't quite make up for the stretch of time where she hadn't been fed at all. Nor has it cured her of all the bodily hurts of the battle back in Drearburh, or being dragged back to her current place of captivity in chains. Still, she's sort of expecting a second-meal reprieve (fuck knows what time of the day or night it is) where she might get at least a little bit of conversation.

She's surprised, then, to feel a low thud of something like disappointment in her chest when the guard delivers the food, dumping it unceremoniously outside her cage before sliding it over with a sword. She makes an effort to engage the woman in conversation - if one can consider insults engagement - only to be entirely rebuffed and ignored. So, she eats her second meal sullenly, alone, through the bars. Quietly aching with self-directed fury to find she sort of misses Lenore's company. “You're being pathetic Nav, get it together," is how she silently berates herself...not quite wanting to admit that those limited moments with her captor are the closest she's ever come to positive attention.

To pass the rest of her time she attempts further drill, stopping only when her aching body reminds her with sharp lights of pain and dizzying spells of exhaustion that she's still a long way from top form. She then falls back on the cards, even spends a good half hour singing a bawdy song she'd once heard in the Drearburh Guardroom. At the top of her lungs. On repeat. There's a distant kind of desire in her to elicit some attention from one of the guards-- she's heard vampires have hearing as keen as a dog’s, and has decided to test it. Perhaps one of them might yell at her to knock it off, or enticingly throw something at her. No such luck.

By the time Lenore finally makes an appearance, she's lying on her back and staring sullenly at the ceiling. Her head tips back as her captor waltzes through in a swirl of mist, and Gideon carefully schools her face into a neutral kind of boredom. Steadfastly Ignoring the frustrating little thrill of relief that rushes down her spine at the sight of her.

"Oh yeah, all good. I've been making friends with the guards. Had a great chat earlier, and then Blondie's armour just kinda fell off, out of nowhere. So then Eyepatch had to help her, but then her clothes fell off and we all thought, what the hell!! Time for an orgy. Just between you and me, I think Eyepatch is pretty into me. She said, ooooh, Nightmare, your biceps are magnificent!" the story she constructs here might give Lenore an idea of how she'd been filling her mind whilst staring at the ceiling.

Lenore laughs delightedly at this story, coming over to sit beside her pet on the blanket. Right beside her, hip tucked against Nightie's side. "Well, they are magnificent," Lenore comments, trailing a fingertip over the curve of one of those biceps, swirling once before lifting away again. "I'm glad you had fun. I'll have to check on the armor straps, sounds like there's a real design flaw in them, if they're falling off that easily."

She gives an extra moment of just smiling down at Nightie, pleased with her and content in her company, pretty sure that this kind of flirtatious smile combined with close proximity is going to make Nightie's brain have a seizure.

Glancing away out the bars of the cage, Lenore gives a sigh. "I'm impatient to have you out of here. But, of course, I have to be more certain that I can trust you. Any thoughts on ways you might convince me?"

Lenore swivels that low lidded gaze back to her pet, now with an added little furrow of unhappiness that only Nightie can possibly resolve by swearing her undying loyalty. Or some other possible demonstrations of trustworthiness. Lenore has some ideas, but she wants to hear what Nightmare comes up with.

If it hadn't been unequivocally clear that Lenore is not planning to react with moral outrage, or anger, or even mild irritation to Gideon's indecencies, it certainly is now. She is, in fact, a touch surprised that her captor plays along with her story (though it would be interesting to see how Blondie and Eyepatch might be taking it, alas that she can't!). This surprise - along with any shreds of irritation she might feel toward the continued failure to get a rise out of her new owner - shrivels up and burns away beneath the diabolical onslaught she's being subjected to.

The onslaught being, of course, Lenore's terrible proximity to her own body. She can feel the enticing push of bone from the vampire's hip, and the soft trace of a fingertip over her bicep sends sparks racing along her spine so electrically that she might just keel over and die. She doesn’t, though. Instead, Gideon tries to maintain her poise...with tries being the operative word. Her heartbeat comes so heavy and quick that she's ready to swear it fills up the room, and her breath catches in her throat just softly, like silk over splinters. She becomes deeply, intimately aware suddenly, that Lenore is the hottest woman she's ever seen in the flesh, and that this is the closest she's ever been to anyone without the inclusion of violence. Never mind someone who fits her captor’s description.

It shuts her up, and she swallows thickly. Heat blooms from the base of her throat and threatens to spread upwards, until she's forced to turn her head away and pretend to be very interested in the wall. She ought to sit up, or move away, or something. Fuck knows she should-- but she doesn't want to. What she does is keep very, very still, for fear that any further movement on her part will cause Lenore to disengage.

This is the shape of her mental state, then, when Lenore asks her question. She should tell her to fuck off, that she'll never be able to trust her, that revenge must be taken for the deaths of the people who had...always fucking hated her guts. It's hard to break the habit of a lifetime, to cut herself loose from the aching parts of her that had wanted to win someone - anyone - in Drearburh over. But Lenore is here, right now, and she's a stone-cold fucking fox. A fox whose eyes Gideon can feel on her face and fuck if she isn't weak to it.

She clears her throat. Takes a conspicuously deep breath. Tries to ignore the wetness she can feel gathering between her legs.

"Uh...," smooth, "I mean...you're practically sitting on top of me and I haven't breathed a word of committing extreme violence. I'm being exceptionally well behaved right now, in my humble opinion. But I dunno...I guess you could ask me to do something. See if I'll do it."

"You are being exceptionally well behaved right now," Lenore agrees, letting her finger return, this time tracing along the neckline of her pet's shirt, hands soft and nails only slightly pointed. It's a continuing test of that good behavior, in addition to the other useful purposes of it. She can hear that quickened heartbeat, can smell the arousal. She knows exactly what kind of effect she's having.

"Tell me your name," Lenore commands, since that's the obvious next piece of information she requires, the test of whether her pet will give her that amount of trust. It's certainly not the request that Nightie had suggested, but Lenore wants it to be clear where the lines of power are here. She commands, her pet obeys. That's how this is going to work.

This feels, in a lot of ways, terribly surreal. The battle that had sparked her to life in a way that she'd never felt before, the humiliation and hurt of her defeat, and of her capture. Now this shit, that she isn't quite sure how to categorise. Lenore's fingers trace along her shirt where fabric meets skin and again she swallows, thickly.

She's been on the receiving end of a multitude of commands throughout her life, and whilst generally she might carry them out, and only after a barrage of crude backchat...she has to admit to herself that the way Lenore says it is kinda hot. Familiarity clashes sharp against something entirely new. The 'I own you, you do as I say' inflection, a sentiment expressed to her so frequently that it should warrant only an eyeroll, except this time it’s commanded of her through soft and petal-coloured lips.

Ah, what the hell.

"Gideon," she answers, tongue feeling dry against the roof of her mouth, "It's Gideon Nav."

"Thank you, Gideon Nav," Lenore says, making sure to shape that name as lovingly as possible on her tongue, just enough of a breathy purr designed to shoot straight down Gideon's spine. "Though I think I will still call you my best nightmare, from time to time. I think it's an apt description."

Her fingertips dip between Gideon's breasts, the lowest point on the neckline, index and middle finger brushing her cleavage for just a moment before drawing away again. "I'll be right back. I think you deserve to have a bit more to your bed than a single blanket."

She rises and slips through the bars, speaking to one of the guards to request additional bedding and then returning to Gideon's side. "I'd like to have you swear your loyalty to me," Lenore comments, taking a seat again on the blanket and reaching for the cards. "But I don't think we're there yet. Shall we play?"

The way Lenore rolls her name around in her mouth like she's savouring some kind of delicacy is enough on its own to get her hot, to leave her biting down hard on the quiet fuck! that's lurking behind her lips. Then there's the light pressure of delicate fingers brushing the curve of her breasts and, ah! Her heart is now so frantic it sounds like a frighten bird is beating its wings against her ribcage. Lust kicks hard along her spine, makes her cunt ache to be touched, and when her eyes slide slowly to Lenore's face there's something bright and unsure sparking in them.

Aaaaaand then it's gone. As Lenore slips away through the bars Gideon lets her head drop back onto the blanket, eyes rolling back in her skull. "Fuuuuuck", she hisses it beneath her breath, hoping her captor's discussion with the guards will hide it.

By the time Lenore returns Gideon is sitting up, cross-legged on the blanket. Studiously examining her short-bitten nails in as casual a way as she’s able to feign. She hasn’t crossed the line into loyalty yet, but had Lenore let her hand stray any lower she might have been prepared pay the sentiment lip service.

"Uh, yeah. Yeah. Cards," is what she does say, whilst quietly berating herself for sounding like a fucking idiot.

Lenore lets Gideon deal this time, instructing her on how to do it but letting her have that portion of control. They play a round, interrupted in the middle by one of the guards bringing two more blankets and a pillow, which are set down outside the bars. Lenore leaves them, for now. They'll be easy enough for Gideon to pull through the bars. The cell's cool but not freezing, but there was snow outside and the walls are stone, so it's obvious enough that the dungeons are heated in some way. Three blankets will still be thin comfort to serve as both blanket and mattress, but Lenore is aware it's still an enormous improvement upon cold stone.

After the second round, Lenore leaves the cards and rises. Her fingers linger briefly on Gideon's shoulder, and she bends to press a kiss to Gideon's temple. "I have a busy day tomorrow. I'll try to make time if I can."

She doesn't actually have a busy day tomorrow. The snows are high and Lenore is dead bored. They're all bored, which makes Carmilla vicious, Morana resentful, and Striga stony, so Lenore avoids them, sticking mostly to her cold and lonely room and wanting to spend time instead with her new companion. But she's aware that absence does make the heart grow fonder, and she wants Gideon itching to get out of that cell, driven to want more time with Lenore, to crave being at her side.

Gideon deals, following her captors instructions carefully, and they play what to her feels like a decent game, even if Lenore - once again - bests her at the last moment. She scatters the game with banter, partly because it's her natural default, but also to soothe her own still-sparking nerves. Hard not to think about the feel of the vampire's hands on her when they're both in this small, shut-in space. By the end of the second game she feels almost (almost) at ease, like she isn't shut up in a cage somewhere deep in the heart of enemy territory.

Lenore's departure leaves her with a tumult of mixed feelings; the touch of slim fingers against her bare shoulder makes her hot and bothered all over again, but right on the tail of that is the bombshell that Lenore might make time for her, only if she can. Her stomach drops hard like the moment before a fall, but outwardly she only shrugs, tongue clicking against her teeth.

"Yeah well, I can't guarantee that I won't have eloped with Eyepatch by the time you get back. No promises, you know?" and this is how she says goodbye.

It's not so bad, at first. She pulls the extra bedding in through the bars and honestly, they're of a better quality than anything she'd had at home. So she's still essentially sleeping on stone, which makes her bruised body ache abominably, but the pillow is decent enough. The blankets, though thin, at least provide a touch of extra cushioning and warmth. She fashions them into a messy nest in the left-hand corner of the cell, thinks about schlicking it to the memory of Lenore's fingers at her breast and the soft press of her lips against her forehead, but at the last comes over shy. The guards are not that far off, and sure they've probably already seen her naked or taking a piss or whatever, but for some reason the thought of them listening to her getting off seems a step too far.

She sleeps, and wakes, and pushes her body to exercise, push-ups and sit ups and squats until her muscles are aching and furious. She's brought food but it's left outside the bars by guards still nervy of approaching her, and each time she isn't graced by her captor's presence she feels a little more sullen. She's accustomed to being alone and ignored, more of the same shouldn't be a problem...but having experienced company that didn't seem to despise her leaves her quietly hurting for more of it. Stupid, pathetic, faithless-- some of the words she internally hurls at herself to reawaken her need for revenge. It all feels sort of hollow though, when Drearburh had provided her with such cold comfort that being locked up here is almost better. At least Lenore doesn’t look upon her with abject hatred.

She goes through the same routine with the one bawdy song, drags it out for far longer this time. Tries baiting the guards in other ways - details of how she'd slaughtered their comrades, sexy fantasies in which her guards take on starring roles - but they must be fucking well trained because they steadfastly ignore her. When the whole day - or night, or whatever, impossible to tell from inside a cage - has passed with nothing but her own company, she finds herself raw and listless with loneliness.

Leaving her alone to sleep through the day and then most of the next night, Lenore arrives with dinner, which is set down by the bars of the cell along with two books. Lenore steps through and then reaches for the books and takes a seat nearby, leaving Gideon to reach for the food.

"Hello, darling," Lenore says, smiling warmly as she greets her pet, genuinely happy to see her.

Lenore's own entertainments had paled for the course of the day. She distracted herself by visiting the kitchens, chatting with servants, designing a new gown, picking at embroidery, reading... but it all was hollow and boring, and she too was lonely. She wanted a companion more than a bodyguard, though having a bodyguard was a good excuse for a companion, someone who had to follow her around.

She wants to crawl into Gideon's lap now, to insist upon being held and indulged, but she doesn't want to risk pushing too far too quickly. It's crucial to make sure that she gives Gideon less than she wants, not more.

"Can you read?" In this, Lenore's less concerned about Gideon's pride. Most people don't know how to read. Books are rare and valuable, and most peasants don't have acquaintances beyond walking distance, so there's no need for letters. Lenore has brought the books with the assumption that she'll be reading aloud from them, or using them to provide reading lessons.

It's confusing, the way she feels when Lenore finally shows up again. There's a bright, hot spark of genuine gladness to once again have attentive company. There's the sick guilt of knowing she ought to hate the woman keeping her prisoner here. There's also the stupid, kicked-dog sensation of having been abandoned, which she hates because why the hell would she feel like that about someone who has likely barely thought of her at all.

In this frame of mind, Gideon doesn't say anything when her new owner greets her. Instead, she scoots closer to the bars of her cage, reaches a touch sullenly for her food. Never mind that all the while she's kinda aching to talk to her. Feels poised right on the precipice of asking why she'd left her for so long.

"Yeah, I can read," she answers the question though, between mouthfuls, still keeping her gaze on her meal rather than where she wants it to be. There's the dismissive roll of her shoulders; she's ready - unabashedly, and without a trace of shame - to elaborate, regardless of the desire to keep her eagerness to talk under wraps, "Like, the basics, you know? Basic letters, basic numbers, although no-one considered it a priority to teach me. Definitely not my strength is what I'm saying, but obviously when I was still just a little kid they didn't know how they were gonna use me yet."

Edited 2023-03-23 23:09 (UTC)

It's tragic, the more that she hears about Gideon's life. That kingdom's most valuable asset, treated like a slave, and not even a particularly well-liked slave.

"I'm sorry that they didn't value you," Lenore says, soft and empathetic, heart aching for her pet. "You're clever to have learned that much, with so little help. I already knew you learned fast."

Offering a sad little smile, Lenore reaches out to rub her hand over Gideon's upper arm, wanting to soothe them both with the contact. "Are you angry at me? Or is it something else?"

She doesn't quite dare assume that Gideon's sulky because Lenore was away, but it's clear that Gideon is sulky about something.

She is sulky. She's sulking and it's ridiculous and this knowledge only further impresses itself upon her mood, because who the hell sulks because their captor and enemy didn't come to gloat over them whilst their held prisoner in a cage? This is how she has berated herself for a good number of the long, aching hours she'd been left alone, and it has done nothing to improve her disposition.

Except that Lenore goes and says something so unexpected, so outlandish, that she finds herself freezing part way between bars and mouth with her food. It feels a bit like being sucker punched, or perhaps like being hit in the face with the pommel of a sword. Cleverness isn't something she's ever considered to be among her positive attributes, but hearing someone say sorry they didn't value you leaves her feeling raw and flayed open in a way that even the compliments can't touch. How many times as a child had she fervently wished someone would just say, hey Gideon, I'm sorry everyone treats you like shit, you haven't done anything to deserve this? It makes it hard to speak for just a moment, which embarrasses her terribly. It makes her want to lean into the press of Lenore's hand against her arm and stay there.

It takes her a moment to swallow the lump in her throat. To draw in a steadying breath.

"It's...it's just hella boring in here. Yeah, yeah, I know. I killed a bunch of your soldiers and threatened to dismember you a little bit. But I was kiiiinda having a bad day," when uncertain, fall back on bravado. Bravado with slim threads of truth running through it, almost wanting to be unpicked.

Edited 2023-03-24 15:11 (UTC)

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