((If you don't like violence, stop here. This will be VERY violent. This is your only warning.))
He'd been right in assuming that the ride from the city would be quiet, and he'd carried her into Midnight without trouble. She was light, being an avian, and who would dare question him? He had every right to her, and he'd paid a fair price to her traitorous sister. She was his.
He brought her first to the dungeons. It wasn't his preference to spend time in those dank, dark cells, but he couldn't let her have anything nice from the start. She wouldn't appreciate anything he gave her if he did, and he couldn't have that.
He let her sleep until she woke up on her, showing any who might take notice that he did indeed possess an ounce of patience, but there was a reason. He wouldn't weaken her further by waking her prematurely. He was going to wait until after this first training session to feed her, though.
Desten awoke in a heap on the ground. She sat up suddenly, gasping for air, and felt around in the dark in the same motion, wildly flailing. There was nothing. No sound, save the echoes of her own movements. She scooted back and back until she felt her spine press against something solid, and slowly stood.
Stefan. He'd... done something to her head. She put a hand on her temple where she remembered smacking it on something, but there were no marks. She'd healed already, it seemed. She felt heavy, groggy, but it ebbed slowly as she moved around more.
She approached nothingness, disliking the dark greatly, and was stunned to contact with cold metal. Fingers twined around the bars as she suddenly realized the gravity of her situation. He hadn't been kidding.
"No," she said, voice weak. "No!" again, this time louder. "No, no, please, this isn't happening," she wailed softly. She slid down the bars to her knees, in a sort of half-sitting half-fallen position, holding onto them tightly in case they should open.
"Shhh, you're going to work yourself up and make it all worse," he told her about as gently as he could right then, and turned on a small light outside the cell. The glow spread into the cell, though not enough to truly light it, just to allow them both to see. He unlocked the cell door in order to enter, and stopped to look her over. Only then did he really explore his own thoughts on the subject.
She was going to need to learn not to cry, first off. She needed to be stronger than that, since tears were a show of weakness to enemies, and they looked rather pathetic. That annoying begging would have to be halted, as well.
"Now, let's get started, Desten. Your situation is somewhat different than you're used to, but if you try, you'll get used to it rather quickly," he explained matter of factly, taking one slow step towards her at a time. He was herding her towards the wall, which had a shackle and a chain attached to it, just for good measure. "The first thing you need to understand is that I am now your Master. When I'm happy, you're happy. When I'm not, it's your job to make me happy. I will never touch you in a sexual manner by force, so you have no need to fear that, but I will hurt you. Make that a fact in your mind immediately."
He spoke to her so matter-of-factly, so patiently and calmly. Her 'Master'? The little hawk's mind just went static when he said that; she couldn't even put a name on the emotion she felt. Rage. Blind rage. She made a small choking noise, wiping at her eyes. She stared up at him with hatred, anger.
"You are out of your fucking mind if you think you will -ever- hear me call you 'master'," she said, voice heavy with acidic intent. She spit at him. Let him hit her. He'd never get her to say that, not with a beating, nor anything else at all. Nothing. There was nothing he could do reduce her to... that.
She waited to see just how far his patience spanned while she tried to figure a way out. Maybe she could fly out? Surely he couldn't catch her if she was -flying-.
Surprisingly, he was very calm about wiping the spit from his face and then on the casual jeans he'd been wearing when he picked her up. That was about the end of his calm reactions, though. He suddenly struck out of her, though he didn't hit her. Instead, his hand closed around that delicate little throat of hers, squeezing just enough to restrict her breathing while he pushed her backwards until she struck the wall. He held her there, pushing her body up to keep her feet off the ground, and he used his other hand to grab the shackle. He held it open, in her line of sight if she moved her eyes enough to see it, and spoke to her in a harsh, low tone.
"Place your wrist in the shackle. Now, or I'll crush your windpipe," he told her. He didn't bluff. She could heal that sort of injury, but it would hurt like hell, and it didn't bother him to do something like that. She WOULD obey, or she would hurt until she did, and probably after as well for making him wait.
That... happened way, way too fast for the disoriented Desten to react to, not in the way she'd have liked. She screamed when he grabbed her, but that was as far as she got before he cut the sound right out of her throat with the chokehold he had.
Her feet danced madly, reaching for the ground as it was all she could do to hold herself up by grabbing HIS arm as he held her. When he said he'd crush her windpipe, Desten believed it, but only because she was about 10 seconds from unconsciousness.
She fought him, though. If he killed her, she wouldn't have to suffer any of this. None. She'd be free. Instead of putting her arm in the shakle, she took a swing at him.
This little bird wasn't going to do a goddamn thing he said.
Did she think he was lying? How stupid on her part. It wasn't as though crushing her windpipe would kill her either, so she was only causing herself unnecessary pain. She would get enough of that, anyway. Swinging at him herself was extremely stupid, though he'd leaned his face far enough back that she couldn't reach. He had longer arms.
The first thing he did was pull her frame away from the wall and smash her back against it, as payment for the attempted blow and her retort, and then, he kept his promise. He shifted his grip slightly so that he didn't break her neck, and he squeezed. Agonizingly slowly, he applied enough pressure to crush the windpipe in that delicate little throat. It would hurt, and perhaps inspire her to listen.
"I don't bluff, my little bird. If I say I will do something, I will. Put your wrist in the shackle."
Desten's head smashed against the wall like a ragdoll, but she didn't have the option to cry out, because he started crushing her throat. Slowly. She couldn't breathe. Everything started to ebb into blackness, but the repairs had already begun, and so, with every millimeter further he crushed, new tissue worked itself, and he essentially released pressure around the same time it sorted itself out.
She had never, ever, ever felt a pain like that before. That wasn't just a slap or a kick, that was real, agonizing pain. She wanted to cry out, but she was afraid he'd just crush it again. As quickly as the dazed bird could manage, she did... whatever the hell it was he told her to do. She couldn't even remember what he wanted, but he gestured her arm somewhere, and that was where it went.
Once her wrist was in the shackle, he snapped it shut and released her throat to allow her body to fall however far it would. If she could catch herself, she could also save herself the rather sudden realization that the chain on the shackle wasn't as long as it should be right then. There was a hook above her head that held it high enough that if she wasn't standing, she'd be hanging by her wrist. He could pull the chain off of the hook to allow her a bit more comfort, but he needed to limit her movement right then.
"You made that seem much harder than it was," he told her casually, the anger he'd shown a moment before already blown over now that she'd done what he wanted. He walked away from her and back out of the cell for a moment to give her the time to re-organize her thoughts, and then he was back inside, shutting the door once more behind him. She couldn't yet be trusted with the door open.
When he turned around to face her again, he was holding a utensil that was about the length of a typical chef's knife, but cylindrical with an obviously sharp point. He held it by the handle, examining it almost absently but ensuring she could see it. He liked using tools that didn't quite look like something the victim would recognize, since it allowed the imagination to roam. This one wouldn't be too difficult to consider, but it was best to start small. He tested the point in front of her, pricking his finger rather easily so that she could see. He kept his tools sharp.
"Let's try this again, Desten. I am now your Master. Let's hear it. 'Hello, Master'. You try," he told her, giving her a threatening glance when his eyes left the tool in his hands. She didn't want to refuse him, of that he would make certain.
Desten was far too incoherent with pain at the moment to try and stop herself from falling, and so with a sickening popping sound, her shoulder rotated up and out of socket. She let out an astonished cry as she hit the floor on her knees, and began furiously pulling at the chain, making the damage worse than it had been initially. She was rabid with fear and pain while Stefan walked around the cell casually, and it was only when she stopped screaming that he patiently began speaking to her again.
The tool was a menacing thing, sure, but Desten was angry. In horrendous pain and scared, but angry. She would NOT submit to him, she refused to go back on her word.
"FUCK YOU!" she screamed, slipping against the chain again and pulling her arm even further around. She made a strange, frantic noise, and pulled on it some more, like the chain would suddenly NOT hold as it had been for the last several minutes.
Well, this was interesting, indeed. He merely watched by this point as she flailed about and caused more damage to her shoulder than he would have himself. Or at least, not in that manner. He wouldn't have personally whipped her about and dealt such damage to her shoulder as all of that. Some shifters, particularly those who were born as they were or changed early, were rather strange about being trapped and injured.
He let her do as she would for those first few moments, even after she cursed at him, but he couldn't allow her to cause herself permanent or lasting damage. When she didn't seem to be stopping anytime, he reached for her throat again and lifted her, forcing her body weight off of that shoulder. He needed both hands free for this particular task and he still had his delightful little tool in his hand, so that was something he needed to deal with before he could forcibly set her shoulder right. He shoved that pointed shaft straight through her right thigh, deliberately missing the bone, and he immediately turned that hand to pushing her shoulder back the way it was supposed to sit.
"You're going to cause permanent damage, and that would make me angry," he warned her with a threat in his tone, not putting enough pressure on her throat to keep her from breathing, but enough to be painful. "Be glad I'm not like some of the other trainers here, or I might have assumed that turn of phrase was an invitation."
The noises she'd made were nothing compared to now. In one fluid motion he'd both snapped her shoulder back into place and jammed a rod right through her left thigh. She screamed, but it wasn't like before. It wasn't a girlish, "oh save me" sort of scream. This time, rats took cover and the roaches located themselves elsewhere. She tried to pull away, but he had her well enough that it didn't matter which way she went, it would just hurt.
She looked down, eyes as golden as the sun, and stared in horror at the spike he'd just jammed into her leg. He seemed occupied elsewhere for the moment, and so, with a trembling hand and tunnel vision, she wrapped her dirty fingers around the thing and PULLED as hard as she could. It made a sick, sucking sound as it came out, and she cried out again, this time choking on a sob.
Blood began to pour out of her leg, and Desten felt woozy for a second before she used the last of the fight left in her to try and jam the stake into his arm. Oh, but she was swift, and that last ounce of strength was true. She struggled to stay conscious, to see it sink into his flesh. She owed him that much.
He'd been careless, but also hadn't really worried about her striking back at him. He liked hearing her scream like that, but if she thought he wasn't aware of her movements, she was simply not being realistic. He saw the movement and he didn't find it to be anything deserving of concern on his part. Even her use of the spike as she stabbed him in the arm didn't really get quite the reaction she had to be going for.
It only pissed him off.
He left the spike there for the moment, instead squeezing her throat again and losing any gentleness he'd been exhibiting in trying to set her shoulder. In fact, he jammed it into place in one swift movement, lowered her with surprising care considering the trouble she'd started with her shoulder, and jerked her chin up to stare at him, the spike still embedded in his arm.
"I'll be waiting for you when you wake up."
Desten could only remember his eyes were the last things she saw. No longer blue, they were all black, with anger, or something else. Or were they blue? The darkness spiderwebbed through her vision as her hands pressed into a pool of blood, which, no doubt was her own. She didn't even hear what he was saying to her, not really, not physically, but somewhere in her mind it made perfect sense.
She lay on the floor for a while as her body struggled to come to terms with what was happening. When she woke up, it had been a decent amount of time, though not enough for her to be fully healed. When she sat up abruptly this time, her hair was matted to her face between dried blood and dirt from the floor, and her cheeks and hands were stained with both substances as well.
She was having no trouble breathing, as that seemed to be the first thing to fix itself, but her leg was practically numb. He'd missed the bone, but he'd nicked the artery. She was lucky he hadn't killed her - or had he meant to scare her like that? She was trembling, and heard nothing and saw nobody, at least not at once.
Slowly, she drew her knees into her chest and laid her head down on her knees. She didn't know how much more of this she would be able to do. Thinking she was alone, she allowed her wings to shift out, and lowered them onto her small form, covering herself. Her feathers were clean, at the very least, though the edges of them dragged in the blood-stained floor.
If Desten had known Stefan had seen the whole thing, she'd have never, ever taken her demi form.
Stefan had let her sleep and heal up a bit, considering that was her first true brush with pain, but it wasn't a practice he was going to make commonplace. This would likely be the one of the last times he would allow her to simply lose consciousness as a result of these sessions, and she wouldn't like that. He hadn't exactly made any attempt to truly start anything other than laying out the rules. She was just a little too...sheltered. She had some getting used to her situation to do.
He had to wonder if he HAD started out too rough, though. Perhaps the spike was too much for her so soon. He'd leveled it down a bit to a long bull-whip, though that could cause nearly as much damage if one knew what they were doing, and he'd learned. It was coiled and attached to his belt as he walked into the cell, having released her wrist from the shackle to prevent further damage when she passed out and then waited for her to awaken. Now, he'd merely watched for a period of time.
Her demi form was indeed beautiful, like a tawny angel sitting there in the dirt of the cell, and he looked forward to a point where he could show her off. Her behavior was hardly suitable yet, though.
The German shut the cell door loudly, locking it this time to ensure no further mistakes. Any traces of the injury in his arm were gone, and he didn't seem to have taken it to heart. She would pay for it, though. "Good to see you're awake, Sleeping Beauty. I hope you slept well, because we have a busy day ahead of us," he told her, approaching slowly.
"To begin, I first need you to return to a fully human form so that we don't cause any lasting damage to those beautiful wings of yours. I would rather they not be mutilated during our efforts," he explained, beginning to circle her as he talked, his hands clasped behind him casually. "If you refuse, I will simply rip them off. They will be damaged if you keep them, and I want them either whole, or gone. Your choice, my dear."
She gasped when he suddenly spoke. The vampire had become good at allowing his voice to announce himself and not his steps, and Desten was lost in her own mind when he approached her. She was so tired, so utterly exhausted. Her wings drooped down around her like some sort of old blanket, and she looked up at him incoherently for a moment before his words fit themselves together.
"If you refuse, I will simply rip them off."
Desten lept up quickly, for her wings were a gamble even she was not willing to take. Without them she would be nothing; a purebred hawk without her wings was like a wolf without their nose or a raven without her eyes. Useless. They recessed back into her body, and she wavered for a moment, trying to stand very straight against the wall and be quiet.
Maybe if she were quiet, he wouldn't hit her with that whip. It... didn't seem appealing. Neither had the stake, but then again, he hadn't been telling her he'd clip her wings, either. She breathed very slowly, softly, as though she were trying to hide from him in plain sight.
She'd taken a little longer to do as he'd said that he'd have liked, but he wouldn't complain. She was tired and not used to such treatment, and he could see it in her mind the way things went together. Threatening her wings worked, obviously. "Very good. You are only allowed to shift to your hawk form or demi form when I say you can, and any breaking of this rule will result in the loss of your wings. Don't forget that, because I won't warn you again."
That being said, he was finished with the subject and ready to pick things up from where he'd left off. "Now that you've had some sleep, let's pick up where we left off. It is only polite to greet someone when they enter your company, so we'll try that again. 'Hello, Master' would be the appropriate greeting. Try it," he ordered, showing a surprising level of patience. She would get this right if he had to flay the skin from her bones this time around.
He said he'd rip them out. Desten believed him, with all her little rapidly beating heart. And it showed. He was one step closer to owning her, which was unfortunate for her. She looked down, and then away, and then back at him as he spoke. There was that 'Master' thing again.
The vampire had to have been inside her head at some point, because her shields were paper-thin and gone long before. She scanned her mind frantically for some good memory to hang on to, because she knew that things were about to hurt again. She couldn't find one. She had no good memories. None.
Her eyes dropped down, no longer that wild gold, but now just the usual glass-bottle green with tiny gold flecks in the iris. She didn't feel like greeting him. She didn't feel like talking. She didn't feel like anything.
She pretended she was somewhere else for a while. It would obviously not work out to her advantage.
She'd be better off believing him, considering he hadn't yet bluffed, and he'd told her he wouldn't. She needed to get used to the fact that he didn't lie over such things. Her eyes shooting every other direction and the sound of her heart beating like a bird who'd been caught by the cat only made her more delicious, and he smiled when she remained silent for a few moments. She was still refusing, which was both informative regarding her force of will, and rather foolish on her part. He would just keep hurting her until she complied. "Well, I have to warn you, little bird. I'm trying to be patient with you, but even my patience will run short the way you're behaving. Since you seem to be having such difficulty with this, we'll make sure you get plenty of practice. From now on, I will greet you when I come in, and you will return with the appropriate greeting in response. Repetition should help."
He released the snap holding the whip in place at his hip, and let it uncoil while he held it. He wouldn't strike just yet. "We'll start at the beginning. Hello, Desten, I hope you slept well. Now, your turn, and don't make me ask you again."
She was trying to hide in her mind, and he pushed past her already fading defenses to essentially jerk her back to the present. He wasn't going to just let her escape to the back of her mind through this. She would remain aware.
Desten was millions of miles away, when she felt invisible hands dragging her back into the present. She blinked, and the sky faded around her, leaving her standing in the dark of the cell, with that single, solitary light shining down on her like she was on stage.
She took a deep breath and let out a heavy sigh. It hurt somewhere in her chest that had not hurt before, something... not like heartbreak. Something else. She looked down at the ground. She couldn't make herself say it.
Tightly her hands twined within themselves behind her back, and she tried not to fidget. If she stood very still, maybe he'd just forget she was there. Maybe he'd grow bored of her and leave again. She felt the compulsion to look at him suddenly, and was caught all over again - this had been her main problem.
She felt no compulsion to speak, however. It would have been easy for him to influence her to say it, but to make her -want- to say it...
He'd have to kill her first, she decided.
Quite frankly, he was impressed with her stubbornness, but part of him said that it was merely that she'd forgotten the pain he could, and would, cause her. He wouldn't kill her, not like she would prefer, but instead he'd make her stay aware of it all. He wouldn't let her rest until he got what he wanted, and he wasn't going to use vampire tricks to get those words out of her. No, she would say them of her own free will, because she wanted him to stop hurting her. It was almost amusing the way she'd told herself this would all work, but he wasn't quite willing to fit into that as she wanted him to. Her thoughts didn't fail to interest him, though.
"I won't be killing you, Desten. You will not only remain alive, but awake and aware, until I decide that I'm satisfied. The more difficult you make this, the more agony you will endure until you are allowed to rest. Remember that, and remember what I asked of you." He wouldn't be stopping for anything short of obedience, and then she'd have to deal with the fact that she'd required so much effort to 'convince'. Not that he wouldn't enjoy it, of course.
He grabbed her roughly by the shoulder and forced her to her knees hard enough that it HAD to have been excruciating on her kneecaps, but that wasn't the most of it. He circled around her again as he examined her form, and he stopped behind her to almost gently brush her hair over her shoulders and off of her back. The whip might cut some of it, and he didn't want it anymore damaged that was necessary. One step back from her body, and he flicked the whip up to crack it in midair for the psychological value, and then flicked it right back down to crack once more against her back.
He only gave her a moment for that to sink in, for the full realization to hit her, before he struck again for a longer, deeper stroke. A real slice that went right through the cloth of her shirt instead of just stinging. He'd see how long this lasted.
Desten inhaled sharply as her knees made contact with the ground. Oh my but that HURT, that hurt more than the thing in her leg did! It was a pain that reverberated all through her nerves, and she bit down so hard she made her teeth hurt. She bit back a scream, though; oh no, she wouldn't scream for him.
And then he started whipping her. It was... like fire. Like someone poured lighter fluid on her and just thrown a match. Her knees, throat, leg - none of it was even remotely comparable to this. Her entire body spasmed as she struggled to keep from crying, trying to tense herself for the hits. They weren't rhythmic, though - he'd stop for a second and hit her again, harder, and she just couldn't seem to anticipate them.
"STOP!" she finally screamed. "PLEASE!" She didn't have anything left. She'd lasted for hours, perhaps even days. She sank into the ground as he paused, no doubt knowing what was about to happen.
Covering her face, she shook her head, jerking as her hair slid across the wide open wounds on her back. Muscle tissue was exposed, and thank God he'd told her to put her wings away, for they would have been rendered utterly useless after that.
"Master, please, please don't hit me anymore," she said softly.
She'd honestly lasted longer than he'd expected for her, but she was still not conditioned to handle this. It was only a matter of time before she cracked, and he once again moved gently and carefully to push her hair back over her shoulders and off of her back. "That's so much better, Desten," he told her, his demeanor more friendly for a moment, to show her that not everything had to hurt. He'd been making it a point to use her name often, to get her used to hearing it from him. He was her world now.
"Are you going to behave now?" he asked, reaching down to tilt her head up from under the chin. It could be such a romantic gesture on his part, and such a vulnerable position for her should he decide to hurt her. "Are you mine, Desten?"
She shuddered as he brushed her hair away from her cuts, spasming every few seconds as her body tried to cope with what had just happened. She didn't think these were going to heal, not for a while. There was such a heavy feeling in her body, like she was sinking into something, maybe tar, or worse. She couldn't explain it, none of it made sense.
She looked up at him, all dirty and pale, and nodded, unable to find her voice for a moment. She knew, though, he demanded an answer - and not a gesture, a real answer. No matter how much it hurt, she had to do it, because if she didn't...
"Yes," she said. It came out in a strange squeak, and she swallowed and tried again.
"Yes, Master. I'm yours."
She felt her heart break, but... it didn't seem to matter. As long as he stopped, it didn't really matter.
She'd gotten what she wanted for the moment, and he'd stopped hurting her. This was a definite step in the right direction, but he knew it wasn't the end. She still had a lot of work ahead of her, but he would reward her for this if she continued to behave well.
"Very, very good, Desten. You're being a very good pet. And now that you're being so good, I'd like to see those beautiful wings of yours again. Show them to me," he told her, his tone once again in that friendly, almost soothing place. He knew it would hurt for her to show him her demi form now, but he wanted to know if she'd do it. She would hurt either way, but it was the choice that mattered. Would she choose to obey him and be in pain, or refuse him and have him hurt her again?
He was quite alright with either.
Desten lowered her head, still shaking profusely and twitching every other second. Now he wanted to see her wings? They were the only thing she had left that was still beautiful, so why would he not want to see them? Her logic was so... backwards. But, yet, he had asked, and without thinking for a moment, she let them slip out.
When they spread, it was an amazing amount of pain - not like before, but this pain came from within as her back -split-. She gasped and grabbed for his hand, but suddenly became afraid he'd hit her again, and so recoiled instinctively, and fell on her side. She rolled off of her wing, and turned quickly before twitching in pain, to brush it off.
Her wings were beautiful. He said so. She mustn't let them get dirty. She scrambled now, to clean them, furiously, and then... she tried to stand. One hand grabbed the bars as she pulled herself up. She'd never fathomed it took that many back muscles to move as it did, but oh, the pain spread through her body so badly her knees quaked and gave. She smacked the ground just as hard as she had when he pushed her, and it took every ounce of sanity to keep her feathers from touching the disgusting, bloody floor.
She would NOT let them be soiled. Master would not LIKE it.
Perfection.
He read her thoughts through it all, and he was delighted. So long as she could keep this attitude, she could leave the dungeon, which was his personal preference. He didn't want to be too impatient and rush it, though. Too much privilege too soon could ruin their progress. He'd noted how she'd grabbed for him in her sudden pain, and that was a good reaction, but the fact that she'd caught herself and not touched him because she didn't have permission was just as good. She'd reacted wonderfully.
"Yes, they're very beautiful. My pretty little bird. Are you hungry?" he asked, though he already knew the answer. Of course she was.
Have a bed made up with black sheets and set out a tray of fresh fruit and bread, with water, he shot at one of his slaves, a middle-aged blonde woman he'd had in his possession for years.
He coiled his whip back up and returned it to its place at his hip so that he could reach a hand out to her. He wouldn't carry her up to a room, but he would help her. She would do the rest herself. "Come with me, Desten. You've behaved nicely, so I have a warm, soft bed and some food waiting for you upstairs."
Desten couldn't process much of what he was saying - in truth, she thought she might vomit she was in so much pain. She stood again, grabbing the bars tightly as she supressed an angry growl - not at him, at herself. She couldn't... couldn't stand upright. Her wings were so heavy on her back, and the wounds were still bleeding - not gushing, but there was a nice trail.
When she was done what whatever the hell she was doing, she took a few deep breaths, and reached for his hand. She -willed- herself not to fall. She'd never had her wings hurt so much before, but it literally felt like someone was taking a hot poker and prying those slash marks open more. She couldn't help but inhale sharply and twitch as they walked, though otherwise she was dead silent. She pressed her lips firmly together and told herself that she would not scream, that she would not make a sound.
If it weren't for Stefan's hold on her head, she would have fallen backwards down the stairs due to loss of perception about a dozen or so times, but when she would start to sway, she would -force- her wings up, however small the movement was, to counterbalance herself. She did not want to rely on this man to get her up there; he was her Master, not her damned valet. She should be good enough to do this on her own.
When they reached the top step, Desten felt another stronger wave of nausea overtake her, and she swayed backwards into the bannister. He still would not let her head go, though, and so what should have been blissful unconsciousness was now a horrible reality. It didn't matter what they had for her in that room he lead her into, she couldn't appreciate any of it. She was in too much pain.
She was doing marvelously, but it as obvious she would need sleep before she could eat. That was fine.
Put the fruit back for the time being. She'll eat later, he informed the slave, well aware that Desten would make it as far as the bedroom before he'd let her mind go and lose her to unconsciousness. She would make it as far as the bedroom, though. He was ensuring it, and she was determined. He was quite impressed. She wasn't quite as useless as Vanille had said she was.
He opened the door for her when they reached it, letting her in first, and led her to the bed immediately. He helped her in, considering her injuries, and assisted her in settling on her stomach to rest. She had done well, so he wouldn't deny her help. It would be if she woke up and refused him once more that he would have to start again. It was really in her best interests that her opinion didn't change.
"Sleep well, Desten," he told her, and he released her mind.
((Continued [a href=\'http://midnightmayhem.ourdarkarts.net/index.php?showtopic=731\' target=\'_top\']here[/a].))