Slave Unbound Ch. 31

Chapter 31

Sabrina Undone

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Disclaimer: This story is not meant as 'erotica', but dark adventure-fantasy. It may contain material that sensitive readers might find uncomfortable. Please be advised.

The sight of the tiny figure inside the cage, her miniature beauty almost breathtaking, left Leita speechless. She momentarily wondered if she'd actually fallen asleep and was merely dreaming this encounter. While she'd heard plenty of tales as a child of such creatures and even more superstitious yarns about them inhabiting hidden places or moving secretively about homes making mischief, she'd always believed them to be nothing more than just fictions.

And yet, the fairy was there, in front of her, staring back at her from between the bars of the cage. Standing, at most, seven or eight inches tall, clad like a dancer, her long dark hair cascading over her tiny shoulders, she was dazzling to behold. All that was missing was a pair of wings for the image to be complete. Otherwise, she looked similar to a human, though her ears and eyes were in larger proportion to the rest of the features of her face and her skin seemed lustrous in color, almost pearlescent.

Leita noticed that the fairy looked as stunned as Leita felt. The little creature's body language suggested she was tense and worried, as if caught off guard doing something she shouldn't. As far as Leita could tell, however, it didn't appear to have been doing anything before she'd pulled away the cover.

"Are you...real?" It was all Leita could think to say in the moment.

The fairy blinked at her, seeming unsure how to react to the question. After a moment, she began just moving about, almost at random, as it having lost interest in the encounter between them. As the fairy moved around, Leita noticed that she sported a miniature version of her own steel collar, as well as a thin, delicate, chain tethering her in the cage. "You're a slave." She remarked off-handedly.

Just barely within the edge of her hearing, Leita heard the fairy made some kind of sound. At first, Leita thought it nothing more than just some inarticulate verbalization, but as her mind ran back through it, she realized the little creature actually said something, spoken under her breath. "You can talk?"

The statement seemed to catch the fairy by surprised, apparently not realizing that Leita had been able to hear her well enough to recognize the sound as speech. For a moment, it seemed to waver, uncertain what to do. Finally, the fairy turned to more properly face her and nodded. After a moment, she moved to press up against the bars of her cage. "You should not be here." She said in a voice that was as tiny as she was, but also just as beautiful. Leita had to draw closer to the cage just to properly hear the words clearly.

"I was...told to be in here." Leita replied in a soft voice, the words feeling a little lame in her mouth. Feeling a bit awkward, Leita stumbled out something to change the subject. "I didn't think one could just keep a fairy in a cage. Or that they were even real."

The little creature made a tiny giggling sound. "Well, most of the stories and myths about my people have grown far beyond actual reality. I'm actually an atylmy, a denizen of the Fenn Lands and one of its better kept secrets. My name is Felicitous Meadowlily."

Leita couldn't help but chuckle a little herself at the very 'fairy-sounding' name. However, she considered that most Fennfolk had similar kinds of names, so she assumed it still made sense, being from the same region. "So, how much of the stories ARE true?" She asked, curious to learn about this interesting creature.

"Well, our size, obviously, and our kinship with nature." Felicitous said, seeming grateful to be able to talk to someone. "We're no more innately magical than you are though. We can't grant wishes or change fates or any of those things. Nor can we actually fly, but we do have wings, of a sort."

From her back unfolded a pair of delicate, membranous, flaps, billowing open like a pair of sails. "They allow us to glide or catch ourselves from a fall. We make our homes high up, out of reach of most predators."

"I never knew there was an actual race like you in the world." Leita said, fascinated by this new discovery. Admittedly, there were a great many things in the world she knew nothing about, so it was possible that many people knew that there was a very real analog to the creatures of children's stories. "I assume your people rarely venture beyond the Fenn Lands. Which is probably why people like me think you're just myths."

Felicitous nodded. "We are few even in our own land, struggling to survive in a world full of enormous dangers. And because of those same stories, we lose many lives to people like yourself who think we have some special powers, able to grant them their heart's desires, only to become furious when we can't."

Leita's face tightened at the thought of someone snuffing out something so beautiful, just because it couldn't grant them a wish. Even worse, she remembered there were other, grimmer, beliefs that various pieces of a fairy's body could be made into elixirs or poultices that could heal diseases or prevent aging. That thought seemed all the uglier now that she knew that atylmies were an actual race.

"I'm so sorry." She muttered, feeling as though the words were little consolation for such horrible things. "Does Sabri...er...the Mistress treat you well? She doesn't believe the stories and think you can keep her young or give her things, does she?"

The atylmy shook her head, but there was a sadness at the mention of her owner. "No, she merely has me dance for her or just watches me move around. She sees me merely as a rare pet, nothing more." She turned to regard the environs of her cage, Leita turning her attention to it properly for the first time.

The cage was definitely custom made and designed for a being like Felicitous to live in it. Though far from spacious, it featured a thick cushion for a bed, basin for clean water, small hamper full of chopped nuts and dried fruit, and even what amounted to a little privy. There were also a few other small objects, likely something akin to 'toys' she could amuse herself with.

"How did you end up here? In this cage?" Leita asked, seeing the sadness in the tiny creature at her captivity. She could feel her heart breaking for this poor atylmy, given that her whole existence was just this one small cage.

Felicitous was about to reply, but the sound of the doors to the room opening immediately stole both of their attention. The atylmy's expression went utterly horrified, quickly looking back to Leita with great alarm. It occurred to Leita in that moment that she might well be in some serious trouble.

The expression on Sabrina Marlowe's face as she saw the scene, Leita crouching next to her desk, eye level with the cage, and the cover removed, did show some surprise, but it showed far more anger and irritation. However, that ire didn't seem focused on the scene before, but as more of a general mood.

However, her next actions were calm and composed, turning mildly to inform the guards outside that she did not wish to be disturbed, unless in an emergency. After that, she stepped fully into the room and gently closed the doors behind her. As she did, Leita was already trying to quickly grab the cloth she'd dropped to the floor.

Sabrina, however, held out her hand, making a gesture for her stand back up, as she walked across the room. "I see you have found my little dancer, my dear." She said, her tone sounding amused, despite the tension still showing in her face. "Isn't she a marvel? Most people don't even know about them."

Leita looked at the little atylmy, who was staring up at her, a pleading look on her face. She seemed afraid of something far more than just having been discovered. "She is, Mistress." Leita replied to Sabrina. "I thought they were just a myth. Does it actually grant wishes?"

Sabrina gave a laugh. "Sadly, no. Do you really think my House would be only a middle-ranked House if they actually did?" By this point, she'd reached them, her attention more on Leita than the cage. "She is really little more than just a unique oddity, but she is a wonderful dancer."

Considering again the atylmy, Leita made a leap of faith in her assumptions and observations. "Can she talk?" She asked, trying to sound curious. The way Felicitous subtly relaxed and the amused laugh the question produced from Sabrina, told her that she was correct in the assessment that Sabrina was unaware of her pet's actual level of intelligence.

"They might have some form of, primitive, way of communicating amongst themselves, I suppose." Sabrina replied, looking at the atylmy. "And she has been trained to recognize a few commands, but she doesn't really understand actual language."

It had not just been the atylmy's reactions that had tipped her off, but how well she knew her owner. If Sabrina had known that Felicitous could understand her, understand everything said in the room, she'd have taken far more care with how she housed her. She'd also have been far more alarmed by Leita having discovered her.              The anger she'd shown when she first arrived was obviously more about the events prior to her leaving, not anything Leita had done while she waited.

"She was a gift from an admirer. One who knew I loved beautiful things and women. He thought it might lubricate me to bestow some intimate favors to him." She chortled, the sound a little too harsh and high. She was still quite drunk. "He was wrong, but I still got to keep my little dancer."

She took a deep breath, as if preparing herself for something, then released it slowly back out her nose, extending a hand to Leita for the cage's cover. Replacing it back over the atylmy's prison, she turned and gently laced a finger underneath the front of Leita's collar, pulling softly to bring her close.

"I should have you beaten." She said breathily, a wash of many emotions swirling in her expression. "Beaten and strapped naked to a pole out front of the estate for anyone passing by to have their pleasure with, as they may." While there was obvious anger in her face, the words didn't sound angry. There was a lament in them, a sorrow that didn't match the words themselves.

"Or maybe I should just sell you to the highest bidder, be quit of you and the temptations you bring." Her lower lip trembled a little. "I should never have let you get so deep under my skin, you horrible...beautiful...incredible girl." For a long moment, she stared hard into Leita's eyes, looking vulnerable and upset by that vulnerability.

And then she kissed her. A hard, deep, needful kiss.

A moment after that, she shoved Leita away from her, wiping her mouth on her sleeve as though needing to clean off filth. "You are my property!" She barked, as if it had been Leita who had initiated the passionate gesture. "Just some slave I own. Nothing more." She spun about, nearly losing her footing, and stumbled to the liquor cabinet.

Leita watched it all, unsure what to do. Obviously, Sabrina was struggling with something more than just concern over how close she gotten to her gladiator. Something here had changed. Her fight with Trinka had caused something to shift, given Sabrina's need to distance herself since.

"Have I done something wrong, Mistress?" She asked hesitantly.

About to pour herself a drink, Sabrina paused, sat the decanter down after a moment, then put both hands on the cabinet's surface, hanging her head. "Yes." She said, then sighed. "No." She shuddered for a moment, as though trying to dislodge herself from something, then stood back up and turned sharply to look at Leita.

"I am the owner of a gladiator stable." She growled lowly, glaring at Leita. "I can't afford to see any of you as anything but expendable. Have a few personal favorites? Sure. But always something that I am willing to lose." She took a few steps towards Leita, looking angry everywhere but into her eyes.

"I don't know how you, YOU of all people, has become so much of my undoing." Her hands clenched and unclenched at her sides and her cheeks flushed crimson. "I didn't even feel an ounce of sadness when I put Cookie into that pit to be torn apart. And I actually loved her!"

She took several more steps, coming close to Leita, a bit of her fire easing away. "At least, I did once." She paused a moment, swaying slightly from both drink and the exhaustion of the emotions she was wrestling with.

"Yet here you are, with every potential to be the star of House Firebridge, and I feel dread at the idea of pitting you against anything even remotely dangerous." Her words sounded both irritated and sorrowful. "That can't stay the way it is. Donovan was right. About everything. I coddle you, shelter you, allow you too much liberty."

Softly, she brushed a hand along the side of Leita's face, her expression growing needy and vulnerable again. And then the face hardened back into a look of anger and the hand reared quickly back and the forward again to slap Leita across the face. Only, the hand never made contact. It stopped a hair's breadth from making contact.

It stopped not because Sabrina halted the blow, but because Leita had caught her owner by the wrist. She hadn't even meant to do it, had reacted purely on instinct. For a moment, a flush of complete surprise went through both of them. They both looked at the hand as if it had appeared from nowhere.

And then Leita seized the moment. "Then allow me to fight tomorrow. Let me take the place of Genmar in the execution match. Stop coddling me and sheltering me."

Sabrina's gaze drifted from her firmly held hand to Leita's face, looking lost and confused. "I don't want you to die." She muttered absently, the alcohol's intoxication erasing away all her previous thoughts.

"Then don't send me to die." Leita said. "Send me to win."

"To kill." Sabrina amended.

"To execute the condemned." Leita agreed. "And win glory for this house and its owner." She carefully guided Sabrina's arm back down, reaching up with her other hand to caress the side of her Mistress' face. "For my owner, as her faithful slave."

"I...I can't." She stuttered, looking dismayed. "You couldn't possibly kill that thing."

"Thing?" Leita asked, suddenly the confused one.

"The condemned is the oruhk that killed Cookie." Sabrina breathed, the words taking Leita's breath away. "Only Solivier's Monster could possibly kill that thing."

Leita took a step back, eyes wide. "You were sending Genmar against THAT?! It wasn't enough to send him to his death, but to be ripped to pieces?"

Sabrina didn't answer for a moment, then turned sharply to stalk back to her liquor cabinet. "That is how the arena works, Leita. It is already being billed as House Firebridge seeking revenge for its fallen gladiator."

"Cookie was never a gladiator." Leita said, her own anger starting to rise. She was also confused as to how the oruhk had wound up as an execution match. It had been entered as a lot, it should have been taken to auction and snatched up by some arena house to tame. "And you are the one who put that thing in the pit to kill her. The woman you claim you loved."

Sabrina held very still for a long moment, back to Leita. "The woman I fed to that thing wasn't the Cookie I fell in love with. She was some warped parody of her. She betrayed me." She turned around, pain in her face. "Because of you. Out of jealousy and petty revenge for her being unable to break you."

Leita closed her eyes, frowning. "I tried to help her. Taught her ways to defend herself. I wanted her to gain perspective, not just be thrown away."

Sabrina sighed. "I know. That was why I made sure she faced something she couldn't handle. I never intended for her to 'learn a lesson'. The lesson I intended to teach was to everyone else whose leashes I hold. Betray me and I destroy you." The words had little force behind them, whatever fire they might have once held had died away over the weeks.

"Then why even bother giving me the choice of what happened to her?" Leita asked. "I asked you then, but you never really answered it. If you never meant for her to live, why even bother allowing me to offer mercy?"

"Are you really so blind to why, Leita?" Sabrina laughed an exasperated cough of a laugh. "To humiliate her by having the slave she was trying to kill be the one to sentence her to die. Giving you power over her was meant to be the salt I rubbed in the wound." She shook her head, laughed again, this one sounding hollow and brittle.

"I never imagined you could still have some kind of mercy for her, after everything she did to you." Sabrina turned back to the decanters of liquor, finally began pouring herself an actual drink. "Even to the point of trying to help her survive. She hated you. I thought the feeling was mutual."

Leita didn't immediately reply. After a moment, she finally said. "It was mutual. I did hate her. But I also pitied her. She was this vain, shallow, shadow of a person, but I could also see that was because she'd been broken. I could see myself becoming her, under the same circumstances."

Sabrina laughed, turning back around, drink now in hand, to look at her incredulously. "You? High-minded and merciful Leita? Feeling kinship with a deranged monster like her. Who'd have believed it?"

"Why not?" Leita said, feeling a bitter swell rise in her. Her next words came from her before she had the time to reconsider them. "I feel the same way towards you."

Any and all mirth was instantly erased from Sabrina's demeanor, her eyes snapping onto Leita with a look of pure fury. For a moment, she did nothing, then hurled the tumbler of alcohol at Leita's head, storming in behind it. She grabbed a hold of Leita's face from below the jaw, pulling it to meet her, nose to nose.

"How dare you." She hissed. "I obviously have granted you far too much freedom to speak and do as you might like, you little slut. I should have had you beaten the first time you spoke to me in any kind of insolent tone!"

Leita met her eyes, knowing she had taken it too far, had allowed her growing rebelliousness have too much rein of her. However, she could not find that passive part of herself to recoil back or show fear. The best she could do was make her face neutral.

"You want to share in Cookie's fate?" Sabrina growled. "Then let this be my last gift of liberty to you. You have your wish. You'll replace Genmar in tomorrow's bout. When it's done with your corpse, I'll hang the remains in the training pitch as a practice dummy."

She shoved Leita away from her, but instead of Leita being the one to stumble and fall, it was herself. Sabrina collapsed into the floor in a heap, sobbing bitterly. For a moment, Leita just watched as her Mistress was overwhelmed by her storm of constantly shifting and conflicting emotions.

And then she stepped over, crouched down, and picked Sabrina up from the floor, cradling her like a disconsolate child, and carried her over to the bed. She deposited her there, Sabrina making no effort to fight back or challenge the actions. When Leita poured her a glass of water, she accepted it without question, draining the glass quickly.

"You are will be the undoing of me." Sabrina muttered. "Watching you die is going to break me."

"I won't die." Leita told her, sitting down on the edge of the bed. "It will. And then we mourn the woman you once loved, together, Mistress. Even if that woman died a long time ago."

Sabrina reached up to caress Leita's face. "Why don't you hate me? After everything I've done to you?"