Punishment Day Festival Pt. 02

I found these classes galling as well--but undeniably fascinating. I also brought additional panties to change after the class lest an inspection from my mistress give her cause to punish me.

Less pleasant was my work in my Mistress's chambers. She was a kind of librarian--an analyst of various orders and part of her remit was to study the often-forbidden texts of our rivals. I itched to get a look in those books, some of which were ancient--and I deeply wished to discuss my own upbringing with her. We did that sometimes--but she was careful to keep me from these texts as I was "very unready" to even look upon their pages.

She was also assigned her own punishments--something I came to understand more over the immediate days. My being put under her wing was, despite what she said, not much of a punishment since she seemed legitimately warm to me and I had plenty to occupy my days without bothering her. Indeed, she seemed all to happy to take a break from her studies when I was charged with misbehavior--something that happened only a couple of times in the first two weeks--and punish me.

Her punishments for me were uniformly awful and usually began in tears and ended in bawling despite her applying what I knew to be light punishments by the order's standards.

The punishment assigned to her was to work the Aerie. That was the tower that I had been brought to after my recovery and seemed to be the place where the order's analysis were sent to work off whatever stream of demerits they accrued. I was understanding, having to follow my mistress around and assist in her labors that all the librarian analysts worked in the Aerie and the sequestered libraries housed in it for added security.

The security was, perhaps among other more subtle things, the Mocking Birds. I was brought to them the first time a day after awakening in the tower and being formally introduced to my mistress. It was after breakfast on the second day that, following morning classes, she fetched me, took me to the bath house and scrubbed me like I was a child.

We were both naked and nearly alone in the steaming water and I felt uncomfortable and excited as she soaped and sponged me off fresh from the Punishment Festival, I was keenly aware this was the second time in two days that I had been naked and cleaned by a mistress of the order and while I stood stiffly and did as she bade me, I burned with humiliation at not being allowed to wash myself.

"I'm going to wash you here," Mistress Tishiah said a hand against the front bone of my pelvis. "Remain relaxed and open--if you try to close your legs, even by instinct you'll be punished--it's an iron rule between apprentices and mistresses."

I reluctantly spread my thighs and she bent me forward some to lean on her shoulder. "You can have me at your pleasure any time in any way," I intoned thickly. I'd read some of the rules. They had been in my pamphlets.

She laughed and begin at wash my sex. "My first mistress would have me kneel before her and would straddle me and pee in my mouth when she felt my tongue had become too sharp!"

My gasp of absolute horror and revulsion at that almost made me close my legs. I (barely) mastered myself and held my position and Mistress Tishiah laughed and gave my wet buttocks a slap--a hard one.

"Ow," I complained.

"Out--out and dry off. You're as clean as you're going to get but they are going to smell the brat all over you, I'm afraid."

"Who will, mistress?" I asked, climbing out of the warm steamy water and hurrying to cover myself with a towel

"Hush girl! No more words out of your mouth."

We dressed in silence.

She watched me struggle into my dress and pat it down, checking it. The dresses we apprentices wore were simple and while not horribly uncomfortable, managed to feel restrictive at the throat and wrists in a way that reminded one they could be bound at any time for discipline. When I was done, she again checked me over. She clearly disapproved of my hair--my hails--and, her fingers touching my cheek--my parlor.

"We may need to get you some sun, girl," she said. I got the strong impression that she felt I would reflect badly on her no matter what I did. It made me angry and miserable. We climbed the long stair to the upper towers.

The upper towers were large and, surprisingly, sprawling. Two close towers were connected with a thick, elevated walkway and one of them sprouted several smaller towers from the sides. I had only seen the outer chambers where the librarians and analysts tended to stay when they were off duty.

We approached the heavy outer door which Mistress Tishiah opened with a key she kept around her neck and I followed her in. There was a desk with a girl behind it wearing huge glasses and studying a book open in a canted holder before her.. She glanced up and nodded.

"Tishiah."

"Valagale." my mistress acknowledged her.

"Want me to watch the brat?" the girl behind the desk asked breezily. I felt myself flush--I barely--barely held my tongue but I was furious. What was Mistress Tishiah saying about me to her friends!?

"I have to take her in with me to the cages," my mistress said.

"Ohh..." Apparently that sounded somewhat dire to Valagale.

She nodded and reached for a lever under the desk that apparently let us pass through the inner door which swung silently.

Inside was a heavy wooden paddle with the word SILENCE engraved on it and a handy padded bench for someone to be tied over. There were lines of cubby holes with shoes in them and Mistress Tishiah slid off her feet and nodded for me to do the same. I could feel the tension in the air. She ushered me forward, our feet now bare on a thick carpet that was adorned with images of sobbing kneeling girls.

"Do you know what a Mocking Bird is?" she asked softly.

"It's an Unclean?" I said, uncertainly.

"No!" she said--then more softly, "Common mistake. No--they are designates of Sattvia--but... wild ones. They don't report to any hierarchy. They are like Uncleans in that respect. We don't control them--at all. They nest here and we are charged to care for them as we can--lest they decide to hunt in the city."

"Hunt?" I felt the blood rushing out of my face.

"Yes, hunt. They are large and can be ruthless. They can smell impurity and feast on the misery of their victims."

"What... do they do?" I had heard they mocked--bringing their subjects to tears but I had no idea what that meant really.

"They can be cruel," she said. "They are intensely proud and their claws and beaks can inflict grievous injury if they deploy them--mostly I've seen them shred clothing, pull hair viciously, and use their claws to leave marks on the skin like from a great whip. Their feathers sting like nettles against the skin, the fresher the more viciously. They eat punished misery and excrete shame. Try not to get any of their leavings on you. They can order you with a glance although they only speak to Mock.

"Mock?" I asked. She looked at me. "They can look into your heart and see things that embarrass, humiliate, or shame you--and they can taunt you most mercilessly. I would rather be whipped by their talons and buffeted with their stinging feathers than tied up and mocked. When we tend their perches sometimes they will mock us." Her eyes lit with the memories. "You will not be in there long, I think, before I come to fetch you. They knew I had been given an apprentice and I received a message that they wished your audience."

I suddenly didn't want to go forward any more. I could feel churning fear in my gut. I glanced back at her as I moved ever more slowly towards the door.

"If you address them," she said, having stopped several paces back, "'Your Magnificence' is preferred."

I think I nodded. I don't recall. I moved through the heavy door into the Aerie. It was a long hall with a wooden floor. One wall had a series of tall "windows"--holes in the wall with triangular tops that looked out over the sky above the city. In these windows were stalls with thick wooden "perches" on them--each perch a cylindrical wooden rod as thick as my wrist--and in several of the stalls, I think three of them out of maybe nine, were the Mocking Birds.

They were about as tall as I was--I think. It was hard to tell since they fairly billowed with gleaming white feathers.

Their eyes were black orbs the size of my fists and their beaks and talons were mirrored gold. Each massive claw would be easily able to grasp my head, encircling it entirely. It was hard to tell where the wings ended and the body began as they briseled so--and one had a crest of feathers rising up from its neck. I could see faint gleamings of other colors in the white.

I was, I admit, momentarily dumbstruck--they were monsters to be certain--but they had a magnificence about them that was undeniable. Then something moved, beneath the one in front of me and my eyes traveled down, below the perch.

Below each perch was a kneeling pillory. A subject could be fastened in their head and arms pointed at the door--their body kneeling behind them under the bird. Under those fearsome talons and..."They excrete shame," my mistress had said.

Beneath this Mocking Bird was a girl--her face pointed haplessly at me. She wore a bit locked tightly behind her neck and head and around her the shredded remains of her apprentice robes lay. It had peeled her out of them.

It was the look of horror and recognition in her eyes that made me realize who I was seeing: the mistress's apprentice who had unleashed the terrible insect into my under things for no reason other than having heard I'd gravely insulted her order.

She looked so wretched--so miserable--however that I found myself actually afraid for her. How long had she been here--what had it done to her? I was afraid to move but then it fixed me with its gaze.

Come.

I made myself walk barefoot across to the floor towards it. I saw the girl huddle back, cringing as much or as little as she was able. When I approached the thing, I could smell a scent from it--like fresh baked cinnamon cookies. I could smell the girl as well--sweat, body odor, tears.

Examine Her.

The order was like a sudden blast of chill wind against me and I shuddered and dropped to my knees, lowering my head to both look at her and avert my gaze from it. I heard her whimper something around the bit

She was naked. Her knees were resting on a leathery pad. The entire mechanism was, I saw, padded--and that included an ivory cup for her chin. It seemed to be built to hold someone, like her, who had lost all their strength. Up close I could see the tear tracks on her face and I could see faint pink lines criss crossing her buttocks--like from the use of a light switch, I though--although I was no expert. Her bottom, thighs, and back was thickly splattered with what looked like gooey white paste--the stench from it was, there was somehow no mistake, the overpowering scent of her arousal.

Locked here, beneath this creature, and whipped and rubbed (I could see the marks of a prickly rash on her inner curves from its feathery wings) she had moistened herself. Even now, the scent rising off her told me--and she knew it--of her own body's awful betrayal. I heard her sobbing moan, muffled by the gag.

"RAWARKK! Now it's your turn to be silenced when your better comes calling, isn't it?" the Mocking Bird spoke from above me in a way that made me jump. "How we wet our panties when we tormented the helpless brat in her diaper! Weren't we aroused by her struggles and pleas for mercy! Didn't we ENJOY ourselves thinking warmly of the wretch losing control of her bladder and having to endure sitting in her soiled absorbent waiting for punishment! Wasn't that a DELIGHTFUL memory we would have rubbed our filthy little cunt to?"

The girl before me wailed into the gag, her whole body shaking. She made vaguely pleading noises but I don't think I could have understood them even if she weren't gagged.

"RAWARRRK! Should she put her little finger inside our dirty channel and feel how WET we are right now?" Its voice was as harsh as breaking ice. I too, cowered beneath it. The Punishment Apprentice moaned.

BREEAH-WELP--

It said--or thought--my name and I froze. I actually peed slightly so shocked was I--and not a little afraid. Oh-no-no-no--I thought--imagining its voice speaking to me next.

You may take her from the pillory--or leave her to me where she will find many new things to cry about. This is your choice.

The thought washed through me as I huddled there. Then, I reached out and undid the lever that opened the pillory. The girl in it gasped in a strangled cry that was, I thought, not entirely relief.

I had to drag her, naked, splattered with liquid shame, across the floor to alcoves and washrooms away from the Mocking Birds. With free hands it was easy to unbuckle the gag and pull it from her mouth, trailing saliva and she flopped on the tile floor as I, still on my knees, sought a towel to clean her with.

"Ohh--" she moaned. "Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhh---"

Her hands gingerly touched the raised pink lines where the claws had marked her. She could take any pressure there so she lay on her side, still gasping, as I worked to clean her back and thighs--afraid to wipe the mess off her clearly over tenderized buttocks. She whimpered as I worked. I made no mention of her exposed sex and its state--aroused and wet.

I was tenderly mopping at her thigh when she recovered a tiny amount of her voice.

"I'm so sorry," she whispered.

"I wasn't going to leave you to that horrible thing," I said, swapping out the towel for another one. I was careful not to get any of the slime on my skin.

She nodded, weakly. "I think it knew," she whispered.

"Knew?"

"I was sent to it by my Mistress because I... punished you--unfairly."

She coughed and struggled to say more.

I was surprised to hear that. And without meaning it, I said: "I could tell her it was my fault--that I spit the drink at you--"

I wasn't even sure what was galling me about this revelation until the girl shook her head.

"She knew you didn't do it. She didn't even ask me to lie about it. She said

"Can she read minds too?" I asked.

"I don't know," the girl said miserably, but she shook her head. "She said you were too soft for it."

That was what was galling me.

Hmmph!! I was so very relieved that I'd not been punished unbearably as the others had been on that parade ground--but I'd also felt an odd sense of shame at having worked so hard to commit an offense against the Order and the Throne only to have my bottom wiped by my assigned disciplinarian.

"There," I said. "Maybe we can get you to a bath?"

She shuddered. "Can I lay here a bit more?" she asked hoarsely.

"Aye. I'll sit with you. My name is Bree, by the way."

"Eva," she said softly. "I heard it after. Mistress had your scroll."

I shifted. "Do... do you think your punishment is over after that?" I nodded at the door. "Do you think your Mistress might send you away for disobeying her concerning the Festival?"

Eva shook her head. "I wish," she gasped with what I thought passed for a laugh in her right now. "I think she'll be done with me having made her point." Her fingers reached down and traced the lines that ran near and sometimes even onto her pudenda and labia.

"It clawed you?" I looked as she ran one finger lightly across it.

"I think," she said softly. "It felt like a switching--a bad one."

"And it used its wings? Down there?"

She glanced at me--and nodded. "It stung awfully--and itched terribly afterwards but the thing used its wings to... to wipe at me."

She shuddered. Closed her eyes. I could see the humiliation on her face and I placed a hand on her bare shoulder.

"I got locked up--and whipped--and then when I... " she trailed off. I knew though. When she has moistened it had dropped a great wing and run it through her cleft and her lips, stinging her with its "cleaning" punishment for moistening.

I wondered if it had mocked her while it did that.

"... being... restrained does that to me too," I said. Her body felt warm--almost hot--under my touch. I hadn't been restrained overmuch, to be truthful, but I had seen pictures of the holding devices the Order had and the techniques of tying a naked subject in ropes that could immobilize, inflict suffering, and artistically highlight the body of the subject.

She nodded.

I lay down next to her--wondering how much privacy we actually had here as her fingers touched places she'd be punished for if anyone in authority saw and I considered if I could adjust my robes to get a hand at myself as well.

I am thankful I did not, for the door opened not three minutes later and my mistress--and the woman--the senior punishment mistress who had cleaned me, both entered the room in search of us.

TO BE CONTINUED...