Chapter 6
Cinder stayed true to her words and left Joan to herself for quite a while. Joan didn't much know what to do with herself, but the room seemed reasonably well put together- like someone had actually intended it for a little girl? That thought was… disquieting at best. If the room had been intended for a young girl, where was she now? Why had the room gone vacant? Hoping to pick up some hint as to the room's history, Joan investigated.
There wasn't much she could find. Oddly enough, there seemed to be hunting blades hidden somewhere behind the bed. Joan couldn't quite reach them without moving the bed to do so. Figuring it might be either a trap or something best saved secret, Joan simply kept note of it in the back of her head. In the closet, Joan found more pretty dresses, most of them were still over the top, but some were of a more… sleek tone. Fancy, more adult dresses, both of the likes one might wear to a club and that one might wear to a more fancy ball.
Honestly, Joan was rather interested in trying the more adult dresses on. They weren't necessarily her style- ideally, she would rather wear something more like Ruby, Nora or Blake. All distinctly feminine without being over the top- all of them rather confident in their dress. She considered trying them on, but Joan decided against it for the day at least. Joan had already pushed enough boundaries with Cinder, and the tyrant seemed rather intent on forcing Joan to wear the poofy pink dress. Maybe she would be able to get away with it tomorrow? That was a good plan.
The final discoveries Joan made were back over by the dresser. In it, she found more clothing, still mostly over the top, but she figured there was enough to make a passable outfit or two. Despite this, it was not perfect. Sure, Joan was growing more and more certain by the day that she was, in fact, a girl. But, she still longed for the ability to wrap up in her old comforting hoodie and jeans. The added option of dresses- the option of being more herself sounded perfect.
In and around the dresser, Joan found some trinkets- what seemed to be a child or teen's collected keepsakes or toys, several papers stacked with what seemed to be a drawn symbol of an eye, and a torn pillow that had 'ella' written on it. Joan wasn't quite sure who Ella was, but she figured this Ella had been the room's last owner.
It was in searching the dresser that Jaune's old clumsiness slipped out. Joan was trying to stuff the torn pillow back in the top drawer when she knocked the dresser just right- had her hips always been that wide? She thought she had more room before she knocked into it? Either way, when she knocked the dresser, a lamp went tumbling down. It crashed on the floor and sent broken glass going everywhere. "Damnit!" Joan cursed startled and jumped back- jumped back and stepped right onto a piece of glass without her aura up to protect her. "Oouch! Fuck! Shit!" Joan gritted her teeth and hopped on her one good foot till she could get back over to the bed.
Joan sat down and tried to inspect her bleeding foot. She wanted to pull the shard of glass out, but she couldn't get a grip on it. Frustrated and in pain, Joan stumbled her way to the room's door, opened it, and stuck her head out. "Hey? Hey? I- is anyone- anyone there? I- oouch." Joan called anxiously and hoped to garner anyone's attention.
No one came. Joan sighed. No one came. Her eyes shot wide! NO ONE CAME! No one was watching over her, she was unmonitored. Joan's heart raced as she realized it was time to run. She tested her food and channeled all the aura into it she could. It would hurt, but she could run. Blood would lead a trail, but only until she made it outside. After that, mud or grass would do enough to help her hide her trail.
This was it, Joan's way out. She was free. All she needed to do was run. One way or another she would find someone, hopefully someone who could help her get home- help her find Pyrrha!
Jaune got two and a half steps down the hall before her new shock collar took her down. Her vision darkened and the collar continued to pulse pain through her existence. Mercifully, in time, she passed out and the pain stopped.
When Jaune woke, she was back in the new bed, her foot wrapped and bandaged up. Cinder stood, her back to the waking woman. The monster seemed to be fidgeting with something in front of her.
Joan tried to sit up, but a slight shock shot through her.
Cinder turned around, revealing a tray of food behind her. "It does not stay for too long. Your muscles just need to be stretched back out before you feel normal again."
"It hurts." Joan winced as she tried to sit up.
"Yes, and it will only hurt a while longer. Here, eat. It will help- start with something soft though." Cinder warned. "I regret you being shocked the way it happened, but I fully expected it to happen soon enough." She sighed as she set the tray over Joan's lap. "I guess I should thank you for working to keep my captive healthy and not bleeding out- though… I doubt you were in much of any danger with that endless aura of yours."
Joan kept her mouth shut. Cinder didn't need to know she had intended on running. Such knowledge in Cinder's hands could only serve her poorly. "My foot feels better." She noted idly."
"It better. You'll be using it quite a bit after your lunch."
Joan's eyebrow rose in intrigue.
"Learning to walk again."
"Ah, I don't think my foot is that wounded." Joan laughed anxiously.
"Two minutes of your aura and it should be fully healed." Cinder smirked.
"I- I still don't really get it."
Effortlessly, Cinder summoned something very different from her usual blades with her semblance. Glass heels, perfectly in Joan's size.
"I- heels?" Joan's jaw dropped. Couldn't- couldn't she just be like Nora and Ruby? Their boots were always so cute, and they didn't ever look… so off balance like she inevitably imagined heels to be. Sure, Pyrrha made them work, but hers were chunkier, stable looking. Blake wore a similar style, but she was literally part cat! That must count as cheating when it comes to balance! Weiss wore a more stiletto style heels, but she was an heiress and always seemed immaculate with her balance. Cinder wore those too, but she was a different breed entirely.
"You will wear these from now on. There are some others I put in your closet, but learning in these will make sure you'll be able to manage just about anything else."
"They look… uncomfortable…" Joan frowned.
"They certainly are." Cinder answered without a hint of hesitation.
Joan forced a smile. "Why exactly?"
"Well, every lady's got to know-" Cinder performed almost chipper.
"No, why are you doing this?" Joan tried to balance not tipping her hand too much while still getting what information she needed.
"Oh." Cinder's expression fell as she icened and bittered. "You Beacon brats are stupendously slow, you know that?"
"I might have heard once or twice." Joan smirked.
"If I must spell it out for you." Cinder nearly spat. "If you want to go back to being a man, you will need to give in. Give in, tell me any little thing about your friends, and it will buy you some time. If I find them- if I find that thief." Cinder glared and dared Joan to defy her with a glare alone. "Untill then, this will not stop. You might not care much about the dress or heels, but, I am sure you've noticed wardrobe is not all that's been changing in you." Cinder reached out and pinched Joan's nipple.
"OOUCH! Oh! Why! Why did that hurt!?" Joan reeled and cupped her chest. Was- was that a bump? Right there under her-
"It will only get worse. I'll put more and more of the dust that is causing those chemical and physical changes in you into your food and water."
Joan looked down to her meal, her appetite dying rapidly.
"Don't think about skipping them anymore by the way. I'll be happy strap you down and force feed you with a funnel."
"Fine, fine." Joan huffed and made a show of eating her food.
"Good girl." Cinder smiled and placed the heels down by Joan's bed. "Oh- and disobey, or act like a man, and you will only incur more permanent changes." She paused a moment. "It will all be permanent if you wait too long, but disobey, or try to escape again, and you might just wake up missing something or with something new."
Joan had no idea if she should be excited or terrified. She- even if she was a she- and to be honest… she was. There seemed to be very little question of that in her mind. But even if she was, that didn't mean that she was ready for changes. Long hair and shaving along with a change in wardrobe was perfect. It was a safe, unobtrusive way for Joan to experiment with her gender, to feel around and find out what type of woman she was; what that even meant. The makeup was in large part uncomfortable, but if she could have toned it down, that too would have been perfect. But… what type of permanent things was Cinder talking of?
Joan knew she could ask- could, not that it would be a wise decision. In fact, she figured it would be far from wise, and that was why she decided against it. The nebulous uncertainty left her mind racing.
Cinder's eyes flicked between Joan's and the food she brought out, reminding Joan that she needed to intentionally eat the drugged food. She wasn't completely sure what it had been drugged with, but Joan was passively aware that there were dusts and other drugs that women- women like her- that was an odd thought… women like her; transgender women could use to develop their body to something more apt for their heart and mind.
In theory, that actually sounded nice. It certainly explained some things. It explained her chest, and if it worked on hormones, it would explain her emotions feeling different; more. But mostly, it sounded nice under the care and guidance of doctors or dust experts who knew what they were doing and explained it to her well. For some reason, Joan didn't completely trust Cinder with that.
Settling that she had no choice, Joan nibbled around at her lunch. It seemed sour knowing it had been tainted- though, maybe it was only tainted with something good? For some reason, that didn't seem to do enough to soothe Joan's worry.
It took her longer than normal to eat through it, but after a while, her meal was gone and Cinder idly gestured down to the heels. "I- umm… do you care to share what the drugs in the food do?"
"More or less what you'd expect. Laced with some dust to work a little faster than it might for the girls that actually need them."
"How- how much faster?" Joan's voice trembled as she tried to fit on the intentionally uncomfortable shoes.
"It's not a science."
"Isn't it though?" Joan questioned.
"Faster." Cinder answered with a cold face. "I can give you more concrete measurements if you want to skip ahead and-"
"Alright. I get it." Joan sighed and stood only to fall back down immediately.
"You know, this will be so much easier with your aura healing all those twisted ankles."
"Wonderful." Joan forced a smile and earnestly wondered if that was how people like Weiss managed wearing heels in the field.
"Up, up, up, try again."
Joan stood again holding herself against the bed to try and stay up. Did the heel need to be so small? Brothers, it was like trying to stand on a dagger. No wonder they called them stilettos. She got a step and a half before managing to tumble back in the direction of the bed again.
"You know how they say when you break a bone it heals stronger? Do you think that works with aura?' Cinder chuckled. "You might end up with the strongest ankles in all of Remnant at this rate."
"I will get it." Joan grunted and forced herself back up.
"Well, you'll have to." Cinder sat down on Joan's bed and stole a half eaten apple from her tray.
Joan rolled her eyes, got another two or three steps. Technically, she had dubbed her progress. Do that a few dozen times over and she'd be able to get just about anywhere.
Cinder snickered and began munching on the apple.
"Isn't that…" Joan squinted.
"Oh, dis?" Cinder mumbled into another bite of the apple. "How exactly would I drug an apple?"
"I… don't know." Joan huffed, her ankles wobbling as she got three steps, propped herself up against something, and got another five. "Ah! I'm doing it! I'm doing it!" She cheered and almost succeeded in striking a pose before she tumbled back down to the ground.
"Ha!" Cinder smiled. "You know, if I'd had known this would be so fun, I would have started you with heels."
"I'm sure you would have."
"You make three and a half circles around the room and I'll let you have some time to yourself. If you ask nicely, I might even let the poor girl ice her feet."
"Why would I want to ice my feet? That sounds… cold? It's already a bit chilly up here. I don't need any colder."
"You'll see. But, if you need and you are willing to give a hint or two, maybe I can find you something to soak them in."
"Just three times around?'
"Yes, oh- but, you have to go up and down the stairs too. Without using anything to help keep you up."
"Stairs?"
"Yes." Cinder formed three glass steps up and down from her semblance in glass. Placed just at the foot of the bed.
Joan got to about a cycle and a half in two hours. Nine times out of ten, she fell down trying to descend the stairs. Her legs were exhausted from the different way the heels forced her to walk, they burned when she tried to control a descent down the miniature flight of stairs. Joan wasn't sure if that was the worst tho. She honestly could not tell because somewhere around the one hour mark, her feet went completely numb. She was rather sure it hurt all the way down to her bones, but again, it was hard to tell with how they had gone numb.
"I can't." Joan collapsed onto her bed.
"You can and you will. We're going again at dinner time by the way." Cinder checked her watch. "You have another four and a half hours before you need to do your next three laps."
"I can't!" Joan groaned with exhaustion.
"Get up, or else you will begin to learn what type of punishments you will get from now on."
"Like what?" Joan slipped in her exhaustion.
"Like this." Fire flickered at Joan's legs, burning off every follicle of hair to her mid thigh- not that she had all that much above that far up or higher to begin with.
"Ouch! Oouch! Fuck! Burning! Hot!"
"What? You said it was chilly-"
"Fine! Fine! I get it! I'll go."
"Really? That was just to get you standing." Cinder made a performatively surprised face. It infuriated Joan how efficient the other woman was at messing with her.
Joan forced herself around the room. Occasionally she would fall into one thing or another, but at least she wasn't falling down. Cinder seemed to take mercy on her and let her stop before she went back down the stairs a third time in one go.
"Well, I suppose you've done enough for now. Rest your feet and we'll get back to it in a couple hours."
Joan face planted into her new bed. At least it was pretty comfortable.
"Cross the legs." Cinder instructed.
"Uugh, what does it even matter, it's not like I even have a-" Joan stopped herself as she realized there was more bitterness in her words than she anticipated. Did- did she want… it's not like she felt all too attached to what was down there in any sense other than the most physical and literal.
"We can fix that." Cinder warned. "Fail to comply long enough and you might just find better reason to cross them."
"You- could you really?" Joan looked up, something between hope and horror in her eyes.
"You will find that Salem's powers can do many things. Also… Watts has… a disturbing knowledge of the functioning and workings of the female anatomy." Cinder shattered the glass stairs and reduced them to cinders with her semblance. "But yes, rest assured. I can, and I will." Cinder paused for a contemplative look that she slowly dropped to her hand- the hand of grimm. "I say you have about a month? Maybe two? Depends how I feel- depends how much you anger me- or how much you give me."
End of Chapter 6
