Strung Part 2

Author: Irk
Title: Strung Part 2

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7

Strung___
Snared in the Lacings___
Part Two___

"You've been such a naughty boy, Xelloss." Zelas examined her nails and the scarlet thread twined around them. "You knew better that to do that."
Xelloss sat on the edge of the bed, perfectly still. He faced ahead and kept his gaze very low. His feet were together, his hands lay in his lap. He had been completely silent for the past hour.
"I can't imagine what excuse you could possibly have for such an action." The red queen twisted the string between her fingers. "I certainly didn't expect it. Even of you, Xelloss." She sauntered past the boy, hair trailing behind her. "I've worked so hard with you. Don't you remember your training?" She stroked the thread. "Or was that too long ago?" She watched as Xelloss' body was overtaken by a shiver. "I see. Well, at least I can depend on your memory."
Zelas paused at the foot of the bed, holding the thread behind her. "What happened, Xelloss? You had been so good up until now. A well-behaved boy. And then you go..." Zelas slowly pulled the string forward, "...and you run away from me..." and as she tugged, the endless loops of string tied around Xelloss' body tightened ever so slightly, "...and I had to hunt and catch you."
She dropped the thread, letting Xelloss' bonds go slack again. "I've been so kind, Xelloss." She ran a hand down his cheek, fingertips closing his eyes. "I've only taken from you what I rightfully deserve." She traced his mouth with a nail, working her fingertip past his lips. "I only make you give me what I'm owed for taking care of you." She raised her other hand to his throat, stroking the tender flesh under his chin with the tips of her nails. "I'm a fair mistress, am I not? I don't torture you out of hand." She gently ran her nails down Xelloss' neck. "I only hurt you when I need to teach you proper behavior." Zelas withdrew her finger and bent down, covering Xelloss' mouth in wet heat. She licked his soft lips and paused at the abrupt taste of salt. "Xelloss. When did you cry?"
Xelloss' lips brushed against her own as he whispered his reply. "I cried when you told me you really did want to own her." Zelas' breath crouched over his face, hot and angry. He felt her eyes prowl his body for weak points. He felt her rage pour out and drown him with its intensity. He flinched. At Zelas' mental command, the string that bound him shrunk up, drawing painfully tight. "I-I couldn't...I wanted...I'm sorry!"
"Such a rude, badly-mannered, unappreciative little boy." Zelas yanked the cords tight enough to strangle a human. "Why do I bother with you? You're less than worthless." She trailed her nails down his cheeks, tracing the red lines drawn over them. The string was coiled around his head as well, wrapped across his face. "She's mine, Xelloss. Why do you deny your Mistress her rightful possessions?" She scratched a red line of her own across his cheek. "What need could you possibly have for anything?"
The cords bound Xelloss' jaw, making speech difficult. He strained to form words. "She was special. I liked being around her. I...I kissed her." The lacings tightened, impeding any more explanations. Zelas' lips teased Xelloss' cheek, caressing it like a bedmate.
"Did you love her, Xelloss?" Zelas' hand crawled down his stomach and crept under his shirt. "You poor thing. I didn't know Fibrizo had warped what little mind you had left." Her hand snuck under the shirt, claws scraping his belly. She chuckled. "If the girl has bewitched you into such a deadly trap, then what's to come is going to hurt you immensely." Her hand rested on Xelloss' chest, rubbing the area that a human's heart would lie under. "I can understand how that could drive you to drastic actions." Zelas sat beside Xelloss on the bed, her hand playing under his shirt. She lay back, pulling Xelloss to lie beside her. "I can withold the full punishment for your behavior, Xelloss." She dragged him on top of her, his legs straddling her waist. Threads guided Xelloss' hands to the sharp metal pendant at Zelas' neck. He tugged it and it came loose, allowing the pale pink fabric of his mistress' dress to drop to her sides. She clutched his arms, pulling him close. Her lips nuzzled his face, her tongue tasting the dried tears on his cheeks.
"To receive a lighter sentence, you must plead insanity." The scarlet judge lay back against the white marble sheets of her bench, awaiting the defendant's reply.
Xelloss knew the laws well here. He knew what the judge wanted him to say. The lighter sentence was a horrible experience, (it was always a horrible experience) but to refuse it would be to accept something even worse. But...what could possibly be worse and still leave him useful? A voice spoke into his head, a voice that had never existed before his service under Fibrizo. The lighter sentence. Take it. You'll have your wits afterwards, and if she has her fun she won't be thinking about that. And the less she thinks about your wits, the more you can use them... Xelloss slumped as he made his decision, ceding control of his body. The thread around his limbs took up the slack. As the thread tightened its hold, locking its grip around every part of him, Xelloss' vision swam out of focus.
Zelas felt the shift in physical and astral tension as Xelloss relaxed against her. She weaved her fingers into the clumps of string that led away from her servant. "I accept your plea." At every subtle nuance of her fingers, threads guided Xelloss' body to take whatever position she wished. All was a blur to Xelloss' eyes as he moved to unheard commands. Control of his limbs was beyond him now. When he moved and what he did were Zelas' decisions now. His world lurched as she had him sit up, his fingers moving to trail over his mistress' ribs.
"Such an obedient boy." Zelas cupped Xelloss' cheek as his hands rose to meet her breasts. His palms pressed against her, fingers gently kneading the full swells. "You know I like you so much this way." She pressed her own hand on top of his as it caressed her. "I've never taken you like this before without complaint. I'll reward you by letting you go without seeing what happens." She raised her other hand, stroking his inner thigh through a layer of thick fabric. Xelloss felt pain rise inside him as Zelas slowly coaxed pleasure into his body. "I think that'll make it a little better for you, considering how much I'm going to make this hurt." She guided her hand upwards, rubbing against the area on top of his thigh where it met with his hip. She ran her hand along this bend, feeling the muscle that surrounded bone and joint. Her hand roamed inwards and stroked the crease of leg against pelvis. "How does it feel?"
Xelloss felt his throat suddenly respond to him as a groan rose from his chest. Zelas pressed her fingers harder, sneaking them under his leg and further inward, guiding his voice to change tone and pitch with every motion. Xelloss' leg lifted as Zelas' arm wedged under it, her hand cupping his bottom. She nudged his base, toppling him over to fall against her. Xelloss' cheek rubbed against his mistress' breast. He felt his mouth move to suckle it as Zelas took away control of his throat. Xelloss' tongue worked in silence now, no cry to accompany his pain as Zelas snuck her fingers back towards the front. She caressed the sensitive skin below his anus, relishing in the waves of agony that ebbed from such an act.
The sensations running through Xelloss' nerves were even more jarring with no visuals to attach to them. He could theoretically feel the flesh under his tongue, the skin rubbing against his face. There was the impression of nails crawling over the back of his hand. Between his legs there were indescribable perceptions of touch. But the mundane tactility was buried under a layer of sensual awareness as Zelas provoked him into arousal. And woven into that erotic fabric were strands of agony. Pleasure brushed him and melded with anguish, the two clashing and blending into confusion.
Egging the confusion on in his mind were his mazoku instincts. Mazoku didn't feed off of themselves. Nutrition could only come from taking pleasure in another's suffering. But the pain was always so alien to him, no matter how many times he felt it, that Xelloss sometimes couldn't fight the urge to feed. His instincts told him that this pain couldn't possibly be coming from Zelas' hand as it dipped into his pants. Such an act couldn't be torture. Didn't he feel the comforting whisper of skin telling his body to relish the moment? This pain was someone else's, ripe for the taking.
But Xelloss couldn't eat his own pain. No mazoku could do such a thing. If mazoku could gain from their own negative experience, wouldn't the positive hurt them? Their own gleeful laughter would turn into screams of anguish. No, the world did not work that way. There was a difference between personal suffering and dinner.
As Zelas' fingers stroked Xelloss into hardness, he became acutely aware of how wrong this sort of thinking always was. In bed he was an exception to anything rational that was ever said about Mazoku. His joy became suffering, and his mazoku mind told him to eat from his own flesh. He rode out the pain, ignoring the tempting aroma of fresh food.
It was almost easier without sight. If he was oblivious of the source of his pain, it became less of a real problem. He was just crazy now. The pain was nothing to worry about, and he could think of other things. As his world flipped over, (Zelas pushed him onto his back...) and filled with curious agony, (...sitting on his erection, guiding his hips to buck into her...) Xelloss thought about his failed escape.
He had only been interested in running at the time. Wriggling from his mistress' arms, he fled while she slept. Zelas could go for days without sleep, taking extremely long naps afterwards to make up for lost time. He thought (as much as he had actually planned any of this) that he could get to safety in this large window. All it would take was popping out of here and finding a sanctuary. His collar bound him as Zelas' servant, but there were a precious few places in the world that he could go to where that wouldn't matter. It would be hard, (Xelloss felt the urge to shiver as he thought of seeing Dynast again) but well worth Lina's safety and his happiness. All it would take was a thought, because he had the power to come and go as he wished.
But it wasn't that simple. Zelas had changed in the near-millenium of his absence. Her chambers were now tightly warded, and the world was locked away from Xelloss. He couldn't just be rid of this place in the blink of an eye. But he couldn't crawl back into Zelas' bed and do her bidding. He would find a way out. He wasn't hanging around just because he couldn't teleport. No, if he had to, he would even walk. Running through grandly decorated rooms of white marble columns and red silk draperies, Xelloss searched for an exit.
It was when he reached the outer corridors that Xelloss began to wonder if he might fail. Here the ivory halls were eerily silent. Columns curved along the walls like the ribs of some great beast. As Xelloss walked around spiraling turns and navigated branching tunnels, he wondered if he'd been eaten by a gigantic snake that had swallowed its own tail. Even his clever mind couldn't solve this puzzle. He was in a maze with no beginning or end. Any time he traced his steps back he became even more confused, doors appearing where walls once were. Time was sucked into the trachea of shifting tunnels and lying halls. Xelloss started running again, reaizing that his time could be cut short at any moment. Zelas might be awake now. How long would it take for her to find him?
All that Xelloss remembered was the running, the feeling of tired legs driven to burning speed, the panicked gasping drive to find an escape. He hadn't even seen Zelas in the room until he collided with a red web of thread. His initial struggles served his mistress well, wrapping him from head to toe in scarlet. He fell to the floor in a heap, still struggling against steel fibers. Zelas watched him squirm at her feet, her face unreadable.
It was with desperate but vain hindsight that Xelloss ceased his struggles at her strained command. As the threads pulled his bound form upwards, he saw Zelas' face contort with rage.
He hadn't spoken after that. He knew that it would only make things even worse. He just stayed still and quiet, playing the good child far too late in the game. But what was the point of good behavior from such a naughty boy?
He couldn't help it! What did she expect him to do when she told him her plans? Bow and obey with no objections? She had explained the rituals calmly, as if they were no more than children's homework. As if he would have no qualms with taking Lina to his mistress so that she could become another breathing, feeling toy.
And she told me I loved her! She knew! She knew I was attached to Lina! How could she think I would be able to take it? I cried out of frustration. I cried because I was trapped! Xelloss felt a warm tremor run through his body as he ground into Zelas. He heard his keeper mewl in ecstacy as she drank his pain with her pleasure. I found Lina first. Is it so bad to want to keep her from you? You don't understand what it feels like to be denied everything because you're worth less than a dragon. At least Gaav valued me more than that. His mental rebellion gave him strength that he'd never felt before while in Zelas' arms. In his last tenure under her, Xelloss had never spoken his mind to his mistress. But his mind hadn't been saying then what it was saying now. This was new, something he'd learned long after he came to serve Fibrizo.
Xelloss inwardly winced as Zelas threw him against the headboard and swallowed his member in a sexual frenzy. Was she never satisfied? His body needed no recovery before it could engage in sex again, but did she really have to take advantage of it just because exhaustion wasn't an issue while he was a puppet?
This anger was new. The pain was old, and real as ever, but his irate thoughts had never been present in torture before. Xelloss marveled at how he had grown in a thousand years. But was this really growth? Now instead of bearing pain under silent obedience, he was suffering in quiet rebellion. Was there any real gain in that? If he felt angrier, he was just more miserable. No, Fibrizo hadn't taught him. She had perverted him, giving him a thousand years of delightful ignorance before abandoning him in a worse state than she'd found him.
Zelas would say that! Zelas would say exactly that!
But what if she was right?
How could that...that...(Xelloss couldn't grasp actually calling Zelas the harsh word that came to mind at this moment)...how could she possibly be right in what she's done to me or anyone else?
Maybe you're as bad a boy as she claims. Maybe you deserved it all. After all, who holds the strings? Who collared you? Who owns you? She commands you as a master commands his slave. If she has so much power, then how can she be the one that's wrong? You know the chain of command. You know your place. You aren't here to change it. You're here to serve.
But...but... In what was almost a separate world now, Xelloss felt fingers grip his throat as Zelas let zeal consume her. ...It's not...fair...
If it's not fair, then how could it possibly have gone on for so long? The world is not mindless. It is overseen by a higher queen than the one embracing you now. If you say she's perfect, then how could your status be an imperfection? Either she is flawed or your situation is unjust. They cannot coexist.
You're wrong. She has taken the zealots to task before. There are many above me that have felt Her touch and ceased to be.
The touch of a mortal is not the touch of a god.
Then what was Lina on that night? A mere human?
...that's not fair. You know I can't argue with that.
I'm sorry. But after so many years, I've finally learned more than you have.
You have to stop. You're going to hurt us.
Considering Xelloss' current position, I can't see why that matters.
You idiot! You'll make it worse! What use is fighting if it only brings you more pain?!
It's better to fight and lose than to lie back in misery.
But to fight and lose is to only be more miserable. Know your station. Live with that and be happy with what you're given!
What I was given? Fibrizo loved that brooch.
I...I...
And it won't stop there. Soon Lina will be taken.
Shut up. You're making me feel miserable.
Well, it's about time you tasted your own medicine. Xelloss' conversation was cut off as Zelas shoved him under her, pushing against him so hard that some of his strings snapped. She clutched at him with her nails, sliding them along his back and through the skin. Her mad fit of ecstasy ended with the flow of blood over snowy sheets. Zelas lay on top of her servant, languishing in the warmth of ebbing passion. It took some time for it to fade, for her to finally drag herself off of Xelloss' body and lick her fingers clean.
"That was simply divine." She tousled Xelloss' bangs and flicked stray bits of thread away from his lips. "You were excellent."
Xelloss felt full control slide back into him in a sickening pulse. The moments after puppetry were always the worst. During the act the pain became so unreal that he eventually couldn't sense any of it. But with the return of his body came the devastation that it had experienced throughout the course of its labors. It was an insidious kind of pain - nothing was causing it now, so there was no way of knowing when it would cease. The pain was as bad as the sickness he felt from the puppetry. Dispossession gave him nausea as the sensations from his body clashed with the notion that it was not his own. Xelloss felt Zelas turn him over to attend to his injuries. His vision was still blurred, and he couldn't correct it. Zelas had used him past the point where he would normally give out. Before he couldn't move because he had no control - now he couldn't move because he lacked the energy. Zelas patched him together and stroked the invisible seams, smooth and perfect.
"Now, was that so bad?"
Don't you dare say a word.
I couldn't if I wanted to.
"Tomorrow I'll start the rituals." Zelas stroked Xelloss' wrists. "I'll expect you to be fully prepared." She didn't wait for a reply, knowing none could come. "But for now, you'll need to rest. I'll require your full abilities tommorrow..." She smirked. "My priest." She pulled away the string wrapped around him in one smooth motion. It slid away like water, vanishing into nothing. Taking a new thread into her hands, Zelas tied one end arond a bedpost and looped the other through Xelloss' collar. With that precaution made, she sank beside him into the bloody sheets, wrapping her arms around the priest's limp body and pulling him close as she sank into the deep sleep of a hibernating animal.
Stop thinking of rebellion.
Xelloss felt the benevolent numbness of sleep swallow him whole. I couldn't if I wanted to.

You can find more of Irk's works at http://www.mazoku.com/~snapple/ficarc/

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