Leaps and Bounds
Aradia's shower was much unlike everything she had expected her first true shower in a couple sweeps to be. Instead of her body accepting the pleasantly hot water her body almost wretched itself from the stream of liquid. She often had to force her body to slowly contort its way back to clean herself off a small inch at a time. She tried to shampoo her hair but found that in doing so she opened her body up to a cruel form of self torture. She had to give it up for tonight.
It wasn't like she didn't get some form of personal hygiene while in captivity but their form was being forcefully heaved into a cold stone room with a steel wool brush and a small bucket of ice cold and used water. After some time she stopped taking the 'baths', deciding that it was the better option to avoid unnecessary pain. She quickly learned that was a mistake when the threshcutioners basically peeled her grey skin off her with the metal wired brush.
Drying off proved just as fruitful as washing herself clean. The towel, though soft and light, felt like stingers and salt. Each wipe only brought with it a wave of pain and the hitch hiker pieces of the towel that clung to her open wounds only made it worse. Through the pain though she did feel a little better about herself, guess she needed the shower more than she imagined.
Aradia's jaw hit the floor when she walked into the closet. Not only was there a golden aeris symbol attached to the door but the inside was absolutely packed with clothing off different assortments. There were jeans of varying colours, t-shirts, long sleeved shirts, zip up and non zip up hoodies, shoes of every kind imaginable, and hats that matched the shoes. The floor was made of an impossibly soft, red carpet and every corner had a mirror taller than she with intricately carved wooden frames. There were bras and panties in separate drawers and more vulgar ones in the drawers beside them. She could barely contain the litter girl inside her who was jumping around and loving the fact that she was being pampered even at the cost of slavery-
In the midst of being a pampered little girl Aradia had forgotten that she had been sold to Vriska. Ruining her own mood she settled on basic attire of matching red undergarments, a brown t-shirt and blue jeans. She couldn't help but wonder how everything fit her so nicely, like it was made for her. Did Vriska plan on making her a slave to do her bidding? She shook her head and walked into the hallway, there was no way it was planned, there wasn't anyone in their group who could predict the future. Well Sollux could but he could only see their doom and demise thanks to his vision two fold.
She brushed her hair straight down and found yet another surprise. She knew that she never had a haircut in her sweeps of captivity but she figured her hair would have been much less bouncy and longer than it was when she finished. But when she looked into the mirror upon finishing and inspecting herself she didn't see the slave that had come in, no she saw herself. In normal clothing, no make-up and dark brown, bouncy hair that reached the back of her knees. In the short amount of time her appearance had improved by leaps and bounds. Despite herself constantly reminding herself she couldn't help but believe that staying as Vriska's slave would prove nothing but beneficial for her.
Forcing herself not to skip out of her room and so distracted by her mental argument about her current position she almost walked right into Vriska. She jumped back and took a good look at her and trying not to blush, why was she blushing? She started yet another mental argument about it but quickly ceased when she saw Vriska laughing and eyeing her up and down. "Wh-what are you looking at?" She asked slightly aggressively.
Vriska let out a small chortle, "Well if you muuuuuuuust know I was checking out my new slave. I have to make sure they look somewhat presentable for my guests after all." She leaned against the wall letting her brown jacket sway a bit. She was wearing what looked like to be a black tank top and jeans almost as blue as Aradias. Her glasses were blacked out on one side thanks to her blind eyes and her robotic arm crossed over her normal arm after brushing her black hair behind her ear.
"Did you say guests?" Aradia asked tensing up a bit at the thought. "I know I'm your sla-" She cut herself off and bit her bottom lip for a moment. "I know you bought me but do you honestly expect me to serve people and clean up after them and let myself be degraded by them?"
Vriska nodded with closed eyes, "I do yes but not yet. The people coming over are merely associates of mine from my last travel and they want to see if I have anything to offer them. You were a rare find and I intend to show you off."
Aradia couldn't tell if she was more offended or pleased at this. Was she really a trophy slave? Or was this just part of some scheme to get her more settled into her new role? "Really? You're going to show off the friend that you had forcefully spent more money than most olive bloods are worth to buy at a slave auction? What kind of an award is that?"
"What does it matter? I own you now and you're going to do as I say."
"And if I refuse?"
"Then I call up the people i bought you from and have you returned." that ended the disagreement real quickly. "I know this is probably the furthest thing from what you were expecting out of slavery but make no mistake. You're still my slave. No amount of money in all of Alternia will change that." She started to turn but halted that midway and faced Aradia again. "One more thing. This isn't some friendly treatment. This is how I treat all my slaves. Just to settle your thoughts." with a gentle pap on the maroon blood's cheek she started strutting down the hall.
'How did she know what I was thinking..? Can she read minds now?' She found herself asking herself in a slight daze, she quickly shook her head and took off after Vriska.
There was silence between the two as they stalked the stone brick halls of the castle. Despite the scarce amount of torches on the walls there was enough illumination for the two women to see and eventually Vriska stopped in front of a door labelled, SLAVE LOUNGE. Aradia was quite nervous about what was to come from this, how did she not think that Vriska had other slaves? Surely there was an unprecedented number of slaves to keep this entire castle clean and presentable for Vriska.
"Well," she started as she turned the knob attached to the door. "Time to meet your new best friends." The door was spread wide from it's framed perch and inside was another oddly well furnished room. "Girls!" She shouted into the room which started a line up of the ones inside. With her robotic arm she started addressing the girls one by one, "This is Tera, Sherie, Navi, and Heather." As each girl's name was called they bowed slightly with overlapping hands pressed against their bodies.
Aradia in turn bowed, mimicking the girls to the best of her abilities, "have a thing for women Vriska?" She asked tauntingly with a smirk on her face when she rose. She was expecting an aggressive form of retaliation and was more than surprised when she was met with a loud laugh, and a couple snorts.
"Oh my gods Aradia. You really think I have some sort of preference of genders?" Her words were muddled together through the laughter but still literate enough to be understood. "I choose females because they're cheaper, look better, and are just as strong as most male trolls. Excluding Equius and his family line but they're stupidly strong and haven't figured out why yet."
A spark of hope twinkled in Aradia's maroon eyes, "you mean he's still alive?" She asked trying to hide the happiness that was trying to overflow the dam that was her mouth.
The laughter was replaced by an eyebrow raised, questioning look from the blue blood. "Yes...he only died in the game. When we got out we were all returned to our living bodies remember? The whole thing was just a separate universe that was created by us performing the double helix reach around to get into the medium. You were brought back to life as well. Which while I don't fully understand since I had Captor kill you a ways before the game started, is clearly a good thing. Did you think you were the only one brought back?"
A red coloured tint rose to meet her cheeks. This time though, she didn't try to hide it. The thought of both her matesprit and her stupidly strong moirail was certainly a pleasant thought, though something told her that getting the attention of either wouldn't be a simple task. Lost in her train of thought she failed to notice two of the girls inspecting her from head to toe.
"Wonder what blood colour she is.." pondered the one Vriska pointed out to be Sherie.
The other, Navi, who seemed to be transfixed on a point in space located near her chest mentioned something about her looking like a lowblood of sorta and by the colour of her blush guessed to be close to red. It didn't take long for the other two to join the other half and even less time for Vriska to break the crowd.
"Okay, okay, I think that's enough of a greeting for the new girl." she said with a slight tone of aggression, which caused a great deal of rushing between the four to get back to lounging around the room. This also snapped Aradia back to reality with a somewhat warm welcome by her captor, "as for you. I say it's time to show you more of the castle before you get sucked into the everlasting beauty of these women here." There was a cheerful giggle from the girls as Vriska closed the door behind them with rolling eyes.
"Well they seemed like nice ladies," Aradia said as they started down the hallway once more. "Sure you don't have a thing for other women?"
Another eye roll, "yes I'm sure Megido. And if you bring it up again I might have to cancel this tour and have you get settled in the clothes you came here in." Her tone had taken a sharp one eighty turn from far to friendly, back to the one Aradia remembered.
Aradia took this as a sign that maybe she was starting to overstep her boundaries so she zipped her lips and walked behind Vriska through the rest of the tour.
The tour took the two women through a multitude of well furnished rooms, which Aradia decided was just something Vriska did to impress others, of varying sizes. Many of what seemed like living rooms were accompanied by incredibly comfortable chairs and small sofas on rugs of different colours and all of them had one thing in common. Every living room had a stone mantled fireplace protected by iron grills and with logs to spare off to the side. Then there were kitchens and storage rooms and bathrooms and treasure rooms. But none of those interested her as much as Vriska's room, which she didn't let Aradia in to see, and the other various closed doors. She did however, learn that her room was in the section of the castle dedicated to the slave rooms.
"Are we almost doooooooooooone?" Aradia asked with her shoulders slumped forward and her feet threatening to detach and fly off.
"Pretty much.." she replied as they ended up at yet another wooden door, "this look familiar to you?"
Aradia rolled her eyes and leaned against the wall with crossed arms, "Vriska you've shown me an unending number of wooden doors. Why would this one be special?" She asked closing her eyes and sighing.
"Well it's your room that's why.."
"What?!" Soon as she had leaned she had bolted past Vriska and into her room, everything looked the same as she left it which confused her. "The maids don't clean the other maid's rooms?"
Vriska laughed and decided it was her time to lean, though this time in the door frame. "seriously Megido? You thought that someone else would clean up after you? Did you forget, yet again, that you're a maid now? Why should one maid clean up after another?"
Aradia shrugged before collapsing onto her bed, "no no I didn't think that. I just figured we wouldn't have the freedom to have our rooms as we like.." Her voice trailed off as she just stared at the ceiling of the room, her little trance interrupted when she felt a tremor form beside her.
Having placed her rear end on the bed with her slave Vriska soon joined her on her back, staring at the ceiling. "Aradia I think you should realize by now that I'm not a tyrant. I'm not some controlling bitch and I'm certainly less of a monster compared to how I was." She twisted her head to face Aradia, who had already done the same thing a moment earlier. A small blue blush bubbled underneath the grey make-up cover on her cheeks. "Don't miss-understand me, I'm still not perfect by any standards but not everything is for my own personal gain."
Aradia wasn't about to believe this non-sense that was being served on a much to silver platter, no matter how she looked at it she was a slave to Vriska. 'But what if she's telling the truth?' asked a little voice in her head. 'She's only been nice since she bought you. Maybe you should give her a chance.' She shook her head and tried to fight the voice inside, she could swear it wasn't her own but on the other hand there was no way she would be having this argument with herself otherwise.
Her thoughts were interrupted when the bed lurched up in the middle and she found Vriska looking down at her. "Anyway I'll let you get yourself back down to Alternia and get yourself looking nice for the guests I'm having later. Remember the way to the entryway?" She asked while half defeated walking towards the door.
"Uh..yeah! But before you go can I ask something?" Aradia asked, forcing herself to sit up on the bed and adjust her shirt.
"Yes?" was the only response she got, and a slight glare in her general direction.
A slight blush "Umm..any recommendations on what I should wear?"
"Something a little more than casual. You look plenty nice as is but maybe something that matches a bit better. Gotta have my workers looking good. Slaves or not."
And with that she was gone, leaving Aradia to herself, her own mind (Or as much of what was hers as she believed was still hers), and time. Plenty of time...
Update
Hey guys, girls, and everyone inbetween, sorry for the long time to update. School and work and Skyrim tend to get in the way, let the excuses begin right? Anyway, I hope you're enjoying this story so far, definitely the biggest thing I've even come close to attempting to devote time to completing. This is actually going to be what my creative writing teacher calls a magnum opus, or final publishing if that makes it easier to understand. So any tips on where you want me to improve are always welcome. I also have about three other short stories in the making and ideas for others, some like my SolVris story you can find here s/10145233/1/Homestuck-Sleepover-SolVris. Anyway I'll try to keep you guys posted and try to come out with more product in the future. Thanks for reading so far! :D
