Chapter Text
The queen talks you right into her bed.
She has had you there more than once, but this time, you know that you are there with the expectation that you are going to repay her for her generosity. And by generosity, you mean the slave she has allowed to live. You have never liked her or respected her, but now you have never loathed her more. Her touch makes your skin crawl.
You don't even get to take care of Reyende. You have to ask J'tzen to do it, and you hope she has. You try to think about that while Mune pins you down and uses you in ways she has not before.
Queen Mune of the Underdark, beautiful and terrible, has become something repulsive to you. She is maggots, she is rot, she is plague, writhing and grinning through some dark elven skin, and she takes you over and over again. Her smile stretches unnaturally. At one point, you stare up at her, hazy with her hands around your throat, and you think that whatever she is on the inside must be pushing out around the edges. She is a strange thing on top of you, a demon in disguise, and you hate her.
You hate her.
At what feels like dawn, if only there was a dawn in this cursed place, you exit her room bleeding and shivering with a cold sweat. Her taste is still in your mouth. You gag, and it hurts your bruised throat. You stagger back to your suite, numb and heavy and trying to leave your body. Take a few more steps. Her hands are still on you, you would swear, little fingers curling into claws.
You need to take just a few more steps. And a few more. And a few more.
You lean against a doorframe. Is it yours? You fumble for your key. It scrapes– that isn't the lock. Did she drug you? Oh, gods, did she drug you, or is this shock? The lock, you need to find the lock. It should be there, but your vision is… is your vision swimming or are you just swaying?
You sink to the floor. Anyone who passes by will probably think you're drunk, from how you're sweating and huffing for air. And then you retch. Someone will definitely think you are drunk. The floor is pleasantly cool and you feel so hot, but you're shaking, but blood is so hot– is there blood? When did you start bleeding? Where is that from?
The key never makes it to the lock, but the door opens. You find yourself back in the safety of your suite, Mazaudyn’s arms around you.
“Mistress!” he cries, but quietly, as though he is afraid to be heard. He arches around you, hiding you. Protecting you.
“Lock the door,” you slur. You know your key cannot be the only one and that the queen can probably find her way into your rooms whenever she wants, but a locked door is better than an unlocked one, even if you don't know who has the keys.
Instead of leaving you to do as he is bidden, he picks you up. Your stomach lurches and you groan. The whole room spins, and the sound of the door locking is so loud, like thunder. You think Mazaudyn is calling you.
Why would he be calling you? He already has you.
You want to go home.
The world spins until you are in the washroom and Mazaudyn is holding your arched body as you retch. You can't breathe, don't have enough time between cramps to take in any air. The sour burn of stomach acid gags you and makes your eyes water. A bitter aftertaste follows. The drugs, perhaps. There must have been drugs. Not aphrodisiacs, there's no heat in your body and there never was. Hallucinogenics, or maybe something that was just meant to make you more pliable and happened to have the side-effect of hallucinations.
She rushes back to you, twisted and dark.
Mune is everywhere. In your mouth, between your legs, digging into your back, and you can't even breathe in enough to scream.
The air does come back eventually, but you are wailing before you realize it, tears streaking down your face and getting in your mouth, your hair; the hollows of your clavicle. You try to tear at your clothes before you realize that you have none, and there is blood under your nails, and Mazaudyn is peeling your clawing fingers away.
“Make her stop,” you beg him, and he rocks you until your wailing fades into quiet, exhausted cries.
You open your eyes and see a silhouette standing in the open archway of the washroom. Well, not exactly standing– leaning hard against the wall, more like, threatening to slip and sink to the floor at any moment. You squint over Mazaudyn’s shoulder until you realize that it is the new slave. He is definitely keeping his weight off of his bad leg, but it does not look quite as swollen and ruined as it did before. He looks at you with wide eyes, staring with an expression of open disbelief.
You try to say something to him, but your voice cracks before you can form a real word.
“Mistress?” Mazaudyn asks, hand clutching at you. His voice sounds less warped than it did before.
You don't know how much time has passed. The last few hours have been so hazy with fear and whatever drugs are in your system that you don't remember exactly what has happened. The queen raped you, you know that, but the details are somewhere far away. You don't know if the drugs have repressed the memories or if your mind did that for you.
But you do know that Mazaudyn is here.
You let him pull you into a hot bath. It shocks you at first, but eventually your breathing evens out. He washes your hair, presses aches from your bones, then drains the tub and rinses you over and over again until the water runs clean.
He dries you off. Something– medicine, by the smell– is dabbed onto your back.
“What–” You croak, clear your throat roughly, and try again. You can see the other slave out of the corner of your eye. He is no longer standing, but slumped in a pile on the floor, wrapped in a blanket. “What did she do?”
“Mistress,” he sighs in relief, pausing in his work to press his forehead to the back of your shoulder. It aches. All of you aches. “Mistress, you would not answer me before.”
“Hello,” you rasp, voice cracking. “I'm sorry.” You can only imagine how scared he must have been. “I'm sorry.”
He's still not accustomed to being apologized to, even if you've done it quite a few times, so he says, “Thank you,” in the same stiff way that he always does, like he thinks he'll be in trouble for acknowledging an apology but in even more trouble for not being polite.
That's probably his exact expectation, actually.
“What's on my back?” you ask when he continues applying medicine to the tender flesh.
“She…” Mazaudyn hesitates. You have no idea what he thinks of the queen, or how he's allowed to think of the queen, but you know that he's a smarter boy than you first gave him credit for and that he's probably identified, at least in theory, that Mune is an enemy to be feared. How confusing must that be for him, that his queen, the ultimate woman above all women, the mouthpiece of Lolth, is one you have told him to deceive and hide from?
Or perhaps women are just meant to be feared and obeyed in general, and it's really not that strange for him. You'll never really know what goes on in the mind of someone from such a different worldview, will you?
After some deliberation, Mazaudyn says, “She bit you, and she struck you. You are open and bleeding.”
“Ah,” you say. The queen has drawn blood before, but not like this. You can't feel any individual places that hurt more than others, either. That will probably come later. “Thank you for taking care of me.”
Mazaudyn is also not accustomed to being thanked. You can almost feel the heat of his blush behind you.
The red eyes of the older slave are on you, scrutinizing and confused. He seems afraid too. Was it your wailing that frightened him, or does he know you are his new mistress and he is afraid?
“What about him?” you ask.
Mazaudyn goes still for a moment and then turns.
“I did not think you would wake up,” Mazaudyn says, not to you, but to the slave, who blinks but says nothing. Mazaudyn sighs. “Lady J'tzen brought him here and gave him healing potions. He has been given a bath and medicine, and food and drink, and then I put him in bed. I… I thought you would like for him to be in the bed. Like last time.”
“Good boy,” you praise.
Praise, Mazaudyn understands.
“Thank you, Mistress,” he replies, sounding warm and pleased.
When Mazaudyn is finished with your back, a bandage is applied. J'tzen taught him how, he reveals to you, even more proud than before. He helps you out of the tub– your legs are jelly and you would fall without him.
“... May I carry you, Mistress?” He sounds mystified by his own question.
You wonder if men carrying women is culturally appropriate here, or even existent as a concept. It seems like it could potentially cause issues with the social power dynamic. Either way, he did it earlier when you couldn't move on your own, so you know he's capable and willing. You didn't even ask him to do it.
“Yes, that might be better,” you mutter, swaying right into his arms like the swooning maidens from your oldest brother's favorite novels. You always teased him for those, saying no woman would ever swoon like that.
He would laugh at you now, you just know it. Well… given the reason for your swooning, perhaps not.
Mazaudyn hoists you into his arms. It doesn’t feel good, but it doesn’t make you feel dizzy or like you want to throw up this time. You cling to him until he deposits you directly into the bed. He tucks you in, then retrieves the other slave, carrying him the same way he carried you. The man’s bare body shows off a number of scars, each telling a story. Something inhuman attacked him. Judging by how all the scars converge between his legs, you can imagine how it attacked him.
Despite the scarring, he really does have the prettiest legs, long and delicate. You imagine him bent over far enough that his toes cannot quite touch the floor, his legs splayed out and kicking for balance as you open his hole with a—
Your stomach lurches. What is wrong with you?
Mazaudyn tucks the slave in right beside you, wrapping him in blankets until he looks like a cinnamon twist you might eat at home. It’s adorable. You find yourself smiling.
And he looks much less dead now.
Except dead asleep, perhaps. Somewhere between spying on you and being put to bed, exhaustion took him. But he looks clean, dry, and warm. His hair is fluffy. A half-emptied cup of water is on the nightstand by his side.
“Oh, hello,” you whisper. His eyelashes don’t so much as flutter. His skin looks soft. Maz must have given him the full spa treatment with that bath. “What a sweetheart.”
He doesn’t answer. An irrational fear creeps into your heart. What if you were too late? What if you got him just in time to make him feel comfortable, and now he’s asleep and he’ll never wake up?
He would probably prefer that.
“Mistress?” It’s Mazaudyn, so quiet that you almost didn’t hear him. You tear your eyes off of the older man to look at Maz where he is kneeling at the edge of the bed, looking so much like a puppy that you want nothing but to gather him up in your arms and squeeze him. His silver eyes implore you. “Mistress, may I sleep in the bed as well?”
You coo at him, reaching out to pet his darling face. He presses his cheek against your palm.
“Of course you can, love,” you tell him, beckoning him into the bed. “Come on, we can all keep each other warm.”
Mazaudyn looks like you have given him a moon. He doesn’t even know about moons. But he carefully tucks himself into the bed and around you as though he was made to be a big spoon, and he drapes one arm over you to rest a hand on the third member of your trio. He settles in quickly.
“Mistress.”
You’re so tired, you don’t even open your eyes.
“Yes, sweetheart?”
“You didn’t want the queen to do those things to you.”
You think of Mune’s white smile cutting through the dark. You wonder that if it was the drugs that made you see the grotesque thing she changed into while she was raping you, or if you were simply seeing the truth.
“… No, I didn’t.”
Mazaudyn falls silent. You can tell that he’s thinking. The volume of his thoughts in the dark keeps you from falling asleep.
“… I didn’t know that happened to women too,” he says.
“Yes, sweetheart, sometimes it happens to women too.”
“… Oh.”
His thoughts are less loud this time, but you can still feel him thinking. He seems to be pondering this great mystery. You have no idea what it means to his worldview, the idea that women can be raped. You’re surprised that he’s caught onto the idea of rape in the first place. You haven’t explained it to him at all, but he seems to recognize that some physical event is taking place and that a person might not want it. That’s a pretty decent start for someone brainwashed since birth to comply.
Maybe he’s sharper than you thought he was.
“Mazaudyn. You know that when we met, I didn’t want to hurt you, right?”
“… You didn’t?”
“No. She wanted me to do it. I couldn’t say no to her then, either. Do you understand?”
He thinks in silence. You finally open your eyes to look at him. He stares at the fading glow of crystals in the ceiling. He’s so gorgeous.
It occurs to you that you’re not telling an entire truth. You did want to hurt Mazaudyn. His pain was exquisite. He took his spanking so beautifully. You just didn’t want to do it against his will. The queen gave you no choice. Where would you be now if you had refused, though? Where would Mazaudyn be?
“And she won’t be able to do… do that to us anymore, after we leave?” he asks. You’ve explained it to him several times now that you’re going to take him far away from this place. He seems to be catching on to the idea that the queen’s power does not reach into the Above.
“No, she won’t,” you promise him.
He closes his eyes. It looks like he’s praying.
“Good,” he says. “That will be good.”
When you are sure that he’s done, you roll over to sleep, and you just barely see a sliver of one red eye staring at you before the newest slave feigns sleep again.
Maybe he heard all of that. Maybe he even understood it.
You hope that he understood it.
To your relief, no summons are delivered the next day. Perhaps the queen had her fill, or perhaps she is simply busy, but she does not call you to another meal or event today. You cuddle Mazaudyn and sleep for hours longer than you usually would. When you finally get up, it is to bathe aches away and take another healing potion before falling back into bed again.
The third time you wake, it is to find yourself wrapped not around Mazaudyn, but around your new slave while Mazaudyn spoons you. The slave is awake, looking at you with apprehension. Your first instinct is to pull away from him so that he doesn’t feel crowded, but you keep still, remembering how much Mazaudyn seems to prefer your touch over your avoidance, even though you tried so hard, in the first few days, to be sensitive about his fear. Maybe it’s something about drow, or perhaps the males are simply trained to be this way,
“You remember me, don’t you?” you ask. Maybe it’s a silly question, but he has yet to speak, and you have no idea what was done to his mind.
He hesitates before nodding. It seems that he can at least understand you.
“You’re probably due for another healing potion or two, hm?” You tap him on the nose. He blinks, going slightly cross-eyed at the gesture. Adorable. “Come on, I’ll take care of you.”
The slave does not hesitate to start extricating himself from blankets even though he looked very comfortable. You can’t imagine being that quick to follow orders to get out of bed. Then again, you have never been ordered out of bed. Your parents believed that growing children needed as much food and play and sleep as they pleased, not to be woken in the early hours for breakfast rituals you would be too tired to enjoy. You hope to give Mazaudyn and this slave similar treatment on the surface, since you don’t think either of them have ever had enough of anything.
Your own movement jostles Mazaudyn, who looks up at you with bleary eyes.
“Mistress?” he asks, the word slurring into a single syllable.
“It’s alright, love,” you assure him, petting his hair. “I’m just taking care of our new friend, and then we’ll be right back. You can stay in bed.”
He blinks slowly and begins to wipe the sleep from his eyes with a balled fist. You kiss his forehead and leave him to either fall back asleep or wake up again at his own pace.
You help your slave up and out of bed and to the washroom, where you wipe him down with a warm, wet washcloth before going through the rest of the potions J’tzen had left for you. She had been generous with them. The options actually overwhelm you for a moment. What does he need?
“Can you tell me what hurts?” you ask him. And then, remembering his silence, “Or show me?”
Staring at the smooth stone floor where he leans against the counter, the male does not seem like he will answer you in any way, but then you see him lick his lips experimentally. Will he speak? He didn’t yesterday, but you had no idea if his physical ability to speak had been damaged or if he was simply too frightened after whatever had been done to him.
“My…” The noise is ugly. He points at his throat. He trembles, and if he wasn’t leaning on something solid, you would worry he might fall.
You read a few labels before handing him a specific bottle of dark fluid.
“Just a sip of that,” you tell him, knowing better than to think a common slave will be able to read instructions.
To no surprise, he obeys. You think that it’s so strange, his very existence. For him to have lived this long, he must have snuck about. Lied, at some point? It couldn’t have been an entirely honest and obedient way of life, you know that. He would have been culled years ago if he had lived the same way the other males live. And yet, he seems the most obedient male, the perfect slave, and you wonder how he ended up the way he is.
The slave coughs lightly, clears his throat, and passes the bottle back to you.
“Thank you, Mistress,” he rasps, still staring at the floor. He still doesn’t sound good, but he never did, and he sounds more comparable to the way he was when you met him. You consider it progress.
“I’ll get you some drinking water when we’re done,” you promise.
“Thank you, Mistress,” he repeats. He sounds so tired. You count the days since you saw him the first time and when you received him from the queen. Did they have him that long? Did he sleep at all, that whole time, or was he tormented constantly? Where was he? What did they do?
Another bottle of something thicker and more viscous has to be applied to all his bruises. Those bruises have changed color since you last saw them, but on such dark skin, it’s hard to tell. His skin tone is middling, at least, a proper gray and not the deep purple or obsidian or even blue that you’ve seen in some drow. It makes it easy enough to find the marks on him and apply generous coatings of the jelly-like substance. It sinks into his skin quickly with a shimmer, betraying its magical nature.
You trace the gel down the line of his spine, which seems to be especially bruised in a pattern that makes you think he was dragged along some rough ground. Poor thing. You can’t imagine how bad it was before his first round of healing potions. You continue on, covering his ass, where the strange twisting bruises are, and follow the marks down his thighs.
“I—” Your male begins to say something, and then stops.
You freeze. If he doesn’t want you touching him anymore, you’ll have to go get Mazaudyn. But is he willing to tell you he doesn’t want you? Can he?
“What’s wrong?” you asks, gel chilling your fingers.
“I— p-please, Mistress, if you would allow it… between my…” He shudders violently.
You glance down at just the right moment to see a small splatter on the stone floor. He’s crying.
“Oh, darling, it’s alright,” you coo, like you’ve done for Mazaudyn. “You can tell me. You won’t be punished, I promise. I promise. You are safe.”
More tears. His head hangs and he hides behind his hair, facing away from you as he reaches back. His slender fingers slip around the curve of his asscheek and tenderly pulls on it, exposing the inner cleft. He whines miserably, and as you crouch down to see why, your stomach twists.
His hole is bruised and swollen more than any other part of him, which should not surprise you even though you did not think of it. Worse than that, though, is despite how swollen his hole is, how puffy and irritated the rim looks, he is… open. Stretched out. You can see inside of him, and he is welted there with the same deep, twisting marks that bruise his hips and thighs.
“Oh. Oh, sweetheart, what did they do?” You help him hold his cheeks apart and he pulls his own hand away. The better view is no better to look at. What could do this? You had thought they had perhaps whipped him with some strange implement, but this? You have no idea. Well, you had thought that maybe something attacked him, but you hadn't thought about the further implications of that. Had they let an animal rape him? Gods, what a mess. “Oh, you poor thing. Gods of the sun and moons. Do you want me to put medicine… inside?”
“Please,” he sighs, but he sounds like he’s choking on the word. He trembles. You can hear his teeth chattering. His breathing is labored.
You start at his rim, covering everything with gel. He whines, a sound that expresses pain and relief both at once. That encourages you that this treatment might be worth some discomfort and humiliation, and you cautiously dip your fingers into him. His shoulders shake.
Reaching deep, you still cannot be sure if the medicine has touched everything. You can only do your best for him. It is difficult work, not physically, but your gut rolls with his every cry. He holds still, though, despite his trembling. A mark in favor of his pathological obedience.
Finishing quickly, you rub the rest of the thick potion along his bruised legs. His knees shake so hard that you can’t resist granting mercy on him.
“It is over; you can rest,” you say, wiping your hands off on the wash cloth you had used earlier. “Well done. Well done. You were so good for me. You can sit right here if you need to, go on.”
Slipping down to the floor in what seems like a barely-controlled fall, your male folds into a deep kneel until his forehead touches the floor. His pain is enough to keep him there and panting, but you can see relief in the way his frame slowly relaxes.
Is this all you can do for him.
You kneel by his head and dare to pet his hair. He doesn’t even flinch.
“I am glad that I asked for you,” you say after the two of you have been there for a good three minutes or so in silence except for his heavy breathing. “I don’t know what they were doing to you, but I cannot bear the thought of you still being there. You’re with me now. There will be no more of this. I swear it to you.”
After another long minute, he lifts his head and gets his arms under him so that he can sit up part way. His tear-damp face looks haggard. You just want to smooth away every hurt. If you can get him home with you, it might be possible.
"You asked for me," he says, a sort of fear in his expression that you hope is disbelief and not dismay.
"Yes. I like you." That is an amiable sort of statement, isn’t it? Something that shouldn’t inspire fear? How many drow women tell their males that they like them? "Come here."
He’s laying himself across your lap with surprising speed. You realize that he didn’t mean to— the clumsy speed of the movement makes you think he got dizzy and lost his balance. He’s hardly stood since he’s been with you and who knows what position he was in while he was being tortured. Judging by the nature of his wounds, you’re rather sure that he was kept on his back for most of it. All the strength has probably gone out of him. He didn’t seem to have much to begin with.
A sharp intake of breath and a nervous tremor down his spine confirms for you that he did not mean to flop onto your lap like a dead fish.
"There we go," you say, petting his back. You don’t want him panicking over a simple mistake. And it might have been a mistake on his part, but you wanted him on your lap, so you want to make sure he feels rewarded. “Good. You’re a good boy. You’re alright.”
“You asked for me,” he sighs, and it comes out like a sob, his whole body shuddering. “You— you asked—”
“I wanted you,” you tell him, carding your fingers through his gray hair. “You’re a good boy and I wanted you so that I can take care of you. You’re going to be alright with me and Maz. Mazaudyn likes you, too, I know he does. When you were gone, he asked me about you more than once. We want you. You’re good. You’re so very good. Everything is going to be alright now.”
Hot tears land on your thigh. You hear Mazaudyn stirring in the bedroom.
“Let's go to bed. Come on,” you say.
Mazaudyn shuffles in with bleary eyes, looks at both of you, and you see a flash of a worried frown before he smiles. If he were a normal man, you would think he was just happy to see you getting along. Or maybe he is.
“Can I help, Mistress?” he asks, yawning widely and stretching. You're not sure if he would have been that casual in front of you even just a few days ago.
“Yes, I think our friend needs help getting to bed,” you say, and Mazaudyn obediently walks over and plucks the male right off your lap. Easy as anything.
That's not arousing at all. Mm-mm. No.
Who are you kidding?
“Think you can tell us your name?” you ask the male as you follow Mazaudyn back into the bedroom.
His eyes widen. You see the fear. Common slaves aren't supposed to have names a woman didn't give them, and that means most of them shouldn't have names, but you know that most of them secretly do. Somehow or another. Now matter how devout their worship of womanhood is, the sin of naming is common. Nearly unavoidable.
“It's alright,” you assure him. “You don't have to say. But I'd rather you have one. Mazaudyn came with such a beautiful name and I'd like to call you by yours, too.”
He doesn't answer. Mazaudyn tucks himself into bed quietly, and then, contrary to your pattern thus far, slips in beside him, leaving you to get into bed on your own. You do, snuggling up to the as yet nameless male so that you and Mazaudyn can keep him warm in the middle. You both cross your arms over his middle so that you can be touching each other.
Red eyes stare at the ceiling, flicking back and forth over the facets of dimly lit crystals. He purses his lips in trepidation.
“... Reyende.”
You hold very still, almost not sure if you really heard it, but you saw his lips move.
“My name is Reyende.”
Mazaudyn looks at you over Reyende’s collarbone and smiles with delight.
“That's a lovely name, Reyende,” you say, and kiss his cheek. He gasps and grips the sheets, but does not move away at all.
He looks… transcendent.
“Thank you, Mistress,” he says, working his way down into the covers until he melts into them.
Mazaudyn presses hard to his side, and you do the same. Mazaudyn and Reyende.
What lovely names.