Yami enjoyed the warmth blanketing him from the spider silk as he kept his eyes closed, listening to the commotion in the cells around him. He'd woken up a few times but decided to go right back to sleep when he heard the creatures conversing in quiet chirps, hissing and grunts.
He woke up again after another long bout of sleep, and it wasn't the usual chatter and screeching he'd been hearing. Instead, it was oddly quiet, and there was soft laughter sounding like it belonged to…humans. Specifically human women.
Prying his eyes open, Yami lowered the blanket and was confused when he saw a large group of finely dressed female humans ambling down the hallway, trailing their manicured fingers down the wooden bars, giggling and interacting kindly with the monsters, who appeared to be lapping it up, happy for positive attention from humans.
Wrinkling his nose in disgust, Yami was about to put the blanket back up when his fish-demon neighbor hissed at him to stay awake.
"Mage Atem! You want to catch one!" The fish monster said gleefully, his eyes bulging more than usual. "Humans when they visit us down here, they treat us with joy! Wave at them!"
Yami blinked and felt his eyelids grow heavy. What…? He was too tired for human nonsense. If they weren't here to be cruel, he wasn't going to insert himself with an interaction.
He pulled the blanket up to his chin, about to wrap himself up again when a human woman in a glittering red dress leaned on the bars, pressing her breasts against the barrier to give him an eyeful, and Yami winced. W-What was happening? This wasn't his court appointed representative. He was not interacting with anyone beyond those bars if it wasn't an elf in uniform robes.
"What are you, a mage?" The woman asked sweetly, reaching her arm through the magical barrier and wiggling her fingers at him, and Yami gaped. Her skin had been coated with magic, repelling the security barrier, and he had to wonder how lax the prison system was.
"Go away. Leave me alone," Yami said gruffly, gripping the edge of his blanket and resisting the urge to throw it at her. What the hell did she want?!
"Play with me! I came all the way here to see you!" She pouted, lowering the front of her dress a little more to show him her breast, and Yami froze, his head spinning when he realized this had happened to him once before…on a bench, in a human dimension, with a shouty, short-haired girl with brown hair and blue eyes…
And what happened afterwards was…unspeakable.
"Play with me instead, Maiden," the fish monster beside him coaxed, poking his claws into Yami's cell from the side bars. "This mage is in mourning over a child. He's no fun to anyone. Look at me, I'm handsome. I'm the king of the sea…! Show me human pleasure instead!"
The human woman paled and quickly gave the sea monster an up and down glance, swallowing visibly and replying shakily, "I enjoy…male mages. Please leave me alone."
"Your loss!" Another human woman wearing the same dress rushed up to give her friend a playful push, shoving her harder against Yami's cell bars, sticking both her magic-coated arms through the barrier to give the fish monster's forearms a squeeze. "Look at you, handsome. Baron, is it? Show me what you look like down there! I've never had someone like you before!"
Disgusted and horrified, Yami stayed rooted to his bench, slightly relieved that the human woman at his cell door had the same look of slack-jawed horror on her face.
What. Was. Happening?
"You're terrible to party with. Why did we even bring you?" Another human woman walked past to give her friend standing beside Yami's cell an elbow nudge. "Why do you pick the most boring, sulky elf-looking man here? Look, there's an ox-man across the way! Get him before Mary jumps on him, and you'll have a turn."
"They're all too big, and I like elf-looking men. That doesn't make me a wet rag," the woman standing in front of Yami's door replied with a wrinkled nose, and there was a chorus of shrill laughter that made Yami's ears ache.
What was happening? A party? He had to ask…
"What's going on, and why are you here to party?" Yami kept blinking, trying to erase what was happening in the cell next door, because the human woman was undressed from the top down, and it was distracting how she kept leaning in through the bars to give the fish-demon a feel with his webbed hands. The barrier-breaking magic was coated in their…skin?
"Our friend is getting married. This is our girl's night out," the woman at his cell front replied kindly, hooking her elbow around the bars and leaning on it, intent on staying there to talk with him while her friend beside her kept squealing and giggling.
"Married. What's that?" Yami asked desperately, thinking the more he talked, the less he would see, or hear, because the fish-demon beside them was laughing happily and asking the woman dirty questions like, 'what is this fluid?'
"It's where you devote yourself to one person. For ever," the woman replied passionately, turning to find her friend, dressed in white, and pointed at her in the hallway. "There. It's one last night of enjoying ourselves with someone else before we commit to one person for the rest of our lives."
Rest of their lives?! Yami blinked and wondered if his ears had fallen off, or if they were being filled too much with lewd gasping and grunting from the other inmates around him. Humans lived short lives and they chose to devote it…? Why only to one person? He had so many questions, but his vision kept blurring, because his fish-demon neighbor had now lifted the cloth he wore around his waist to show her his arousal which was a terrifying, ridged, scaly length that matched the girth along the rest of his body.
Yami's breath caught painfully in his chest and his eyes widened, and the human woman at his door also stared, her cheeks turning dark pink as she covered her eyes and turned to press her forehead against the bars, wincing and calling out loudly, "Chrissy if you do that, I will kill you! I will tell everyone!"
"That I fucked a sea baron?" She replied with a cackle, and to Yami's horror, the sea monster loved that compliment.
"Yes, tell everyone!" The fish-headed monster grinned, showing off his rows of pointed teeth, his eyes darting every which way with excitement. "Show me human pleasure, Maiden!"
Yami raised his hand shakily, not caring that he was revealing that his cuffs were broken as he cast a muffling spell over his entire cell, along with a visual dampening spell, and an isolation spell on top of that as the gasping and grunting around him reached an all-time high. This was…hellish and disgusting!
The human woman at his door let out a nervous cry, seeing frosty glass shrouding the cell in front of her and she thumped her fist on it, "hey! I thought they couldn't do magic! Let me in there too!"
N-No! Yami thought furiously, seeing her blurry silhouette outside of his protective bubble of silence.
"I'll report you! Let me in there! I can't take it anymore! Let me in or let me go home!" The woman cried shrilly, and Yami saw another woman run up to give her a shove.
"Stop being such a limp dick! Why did you even come if you knew this was what we're doing?!" Her friend snapped, eyeing the frosted cell. "What's in there? Anything good?"
"A mage-elf-looking man," the first woman replied, and Yami watched the second shadow leave after waving carelessly over her shoulder.
"Boring! Fuck the ox man across the way! Oh wait, too late, he's taken."
Yami let his breath out shakily, thinking it was over and he was safe, but the human woman at his cell front kept calling out to him, "Please! Oh my fucking god, Ali that's disgusting. Don't swallow it—LET ME IN MAGE, OR I WILL REPORT YOU FOR CASTING IN A CELL!"
They talk like Seto! Yami thought furiously, with usage of the word 'fucking', it made his heart wrench uncomfortably, and he opened his frosted bubble a sliver and extended it include her and the three steps behind her.
She looked shaken and suddenly very tired. Her makeup was smeared around the corners of her eyes from the way she kept touching her face, and she wiped her palms on her dress in disgust, before hugging herself and shivering.
"I didn't want to come," she said with a delicate wrinkle of her nose as she looked visibly relieved by the silence. "But they were missing a bridesmaid and I fit the dress, so…" She gestured at the dress she was wearing and Yami barely glanced at her. Great. Could she leave now?
He didn't understand any of that.
"So, aren't you bored? Wanna…talk about something?" the woman asked with an encouraging nod. "What's your name? Better yet… W-What did you do to land yourself in here? I've never seen a mage-elf in prison before. Who or what did you kill?"
"I saved a demon child from a District-ordered massacre," Yami replied shortly, pulling the blanket up over his head. "Now I'm going to rest. Tell me when they're all done pleasuring. I'm not interested."
"I-In me…or…the…-we don't have to go all the way," the woman looked deeply crestfallen, and Yami gave her a glare.
"Yes, in all of it." he replied shortly, and he pulled the blanket over his head to avoid seeing her, because he kept remembering flashes of the shouty human woman in the other dimension who he'd encountered, and she was prettier by far. Cuter too, and…very demanding
"I'm not pretty enough for you? What is it?" The woman was relentless, now sounding close to hysterics. "Come on! Do something! You are boring. Lizard man next door was right. Gosh…"
"I already let you into the silence. Stop interrupting it," Yami replied icily, about to open the crack to kick her out into the hallway, and the heartbroken look she gave him made his heart clench with fury and guilt, so he hastily added, "you are pretty. But I like men."
There. That would do it, hopefully.
"What? You have a preference for gender?! I've never met a mage who does!" She cried, her eyes shining with interest as she leaned her cheek closer to the space in the bars, pointing at her ear which was decorated with a single red ruby to match her dress. "Tell me, what type of men do you prefer?"
"No preference," Yami replied calmly, his heart skipping a beat when he realized she was right. He didn't have a preference, but he was trying to make her go away and would say anything that would!
The woman let out a frustrated huff and leaned against the bars again, patting her brow with the back of her hand, perking up and then asking, "can you let me out now? I want to go, and you're boring."
Very well, good riddance, Yami thought smugly as he snapped his fingers and opened a divide to let her step through. That was a mistake, because the sounds everyone was making outside…were horrifying, and he caught a glimpse of what was happening across the way with the ox man and nearly felt his soul leave his body from the nauseating visual.
The human woman let out a shriek and backed against the bars so hard, she slipped and stumbled to the ground where she turned around and hugged a large wooden bar with her arms, clinging to it and crying, "I'm SORRY for asking! PLEASE CLOSE IT! Oh my g—n...I c-can't…c-can't…h…h—"
She started hyperventilating and curling herself tighter to the wooden bar, her dress getting dirty from the ground because of the way she kept shrinking her knees up to her chest around the bars, but she didn't seem to care.
Yami finally snapped out of his stupor to close the gap, and he clapped a hand to his mouth, his throat tight with a sour taste and his eyes watering. What…in the gods was happening here?! When he did this sort of thing with…the human man in the other dimension, it was nothing like this! It had been…caring and gentle, maybe even…loving?
"You gonna throw up?" The woman asked knowingly, seeing the spiky-haired mage's shoulders shaking as he kept a hand clamped tightly over his face. "I'll look away."
Yami shivered and took a deep breath, and another, and another. Okay, the silence was helping. His level 100 silence barrier was good enough to keep out the sounds, the smells and most importantly, the sights.
"Don't report me for casting. You'll end up killing me if this type of event happens again. I need this barrier," Yami replied gruffly, hoping to elicit sympathy from the human, and she raised her hands up defensively.
"Oh, no. You're...good, fine—I-I was…being mean. I'm sorry." She sighed and thunked her forehead on the bars, closing her eyes in exhaustion. "And I'm drunk, but the buzz is wearing off. My friends were rubbing off on me badly."
"Those are your friends?" Yami asked, horrified and unable to keep the disgust from leaking into his voice. Humans were…terrifying and disgusting creatures!
"Well, no. Only…she is," the woman raised her head and pointed at the cell next door at the blob of shadows moving up against each other in a frenzied motion, making Yami sick the longer he looked, so he focused back to her instead. "I don't even know the bride that well. Again, I just fit the dress…and I'm always a bridesmaid, never a bride…"
"Say more about that," Yami nodded heatedly, bunching the silk blanket in his lap, hating how his body was vibrating with…anxiety and fear, so much that he badly wanted a distraction. He'd welcome human conversation to banish his fear.
"Which part? Being a bridesmaid? Or the bride who is a raging…b-word?" The woman laughed and shrugged. "Dunno, just never found a guy to settle down with. Men in my district are all hungry for money, power, and the thrill of adventure. They go off and get themselves killed all the time. Why would I bother marrying one, you know?"
"Sounds like men," Yami nodded, thinking that aligned with his own thoughts about human men. Now about the dedication question…
"Marrying? Please speak more on that," Yami asked desperately, wishing he could cast another isolation spell on top of the one he'd already done. "Your lives are short. Why would you devote it to one person?"
"Don't know," the woman replied with a dry smile. "It sounds stupid, right? Would make more sense if I lived to 300. Then it'd be something worth investing in."
R-Right… Yami thought nervously, and there was a tense silence between them.
"So, your turn!" The human sang, waving her arm through the bars, looking better as the color returned to her cheeks. "Let's gossip about men that you like!"
"I don't…" Yami paused and realized he did have one story that aligned with her interests. Possibly several…. involving human men and the pleasurable touching. She wanted to hear tales and be entertained? He'd do that to avoid her touching him…
"Ooo, can't choose?" She stuck her tongue out and laughed. "Hurry and tell me about one. And can you cast more solidly…there…like this general direction…" She gestured at the mass of shadows writhing in the cell next door.
Yami pointed sadly at his collar, wrinkling his nose in disgust as he tried not to look at them. "Level dampening. This is the best I can do."
"UGHHHH!" The woman cried, thumping her head on the wooden bars, curling up against it and making a fake retching noise. "Fuck this so much!"
"I hear that a lot too. From humans," Yami said quickly, thinking he heard Seto say that more often than not. "Explain that, with the eye looking upwards gesture."
"Oh, this…" She rolled her eyes and made a face. "Means I'm done talking to you, you're gross, or I'm bored."
Yami nodded. That aligned with what Seto said…
"And 'fuck' is a curse word we invented to talk about…that," she pointed at the lumpy shadows in the cell next door. "And it evolved into a fun way to let off steam when you talk. Example, PLEASE FUCKING STOP!" She shouted at the barrier, and Yami felt the corners of his mouth curve upwards into a smile.
"They can't hear you," Yami began, and she groaned again, "I KNOW but I wanna yell about it. Worst bachelorette party ever. Can't believe I was too chicken to chicken out."
Yami opened his mouth to ask, but she caught on and explained, "girl's night out. Before committing. It's a party of all parties. Sex is a main factor."
"Do…men do this?" Yami asked, wondering if he ought to be surprised at the answer.
"They do it…worse," the woman replied with a barking laugh. "And impregnate harpies left and right, causing break-ups right before the wedding. It's gross. Let's not talk about that! You owe me a storyyyyyy! About a guy!"
Alright, alright, Yami thought hastily, raking a hand through his spiky bangs and bracing himself to talk about the handsome white-haired human that worked with spider blood drinks.
"There was—is, a human that…I like," Yami ventured, and she looked instantly alert, hugging the bars and staring into his face with bright eyes, which encouraged him to add, "he works at a coffee-fey. Café."
"A barista?" She asked passionately, and Yami shrugged, not understanding much human dialect.
"He owns the café," Yami explained, and she nodded eagerly, so he continued, "he used to work at a convenient store, a shop where I was sent to capture a greed monster wandering around, and he thought I was shoplifting. We connected after he made me a few drinks."
"Awh, you like coffee?" She pressed, looking much more relaxed and less distressed, which made Yami feel better, so he elaborated.
"Not particularly, but only the drinks he made me," Yami said thoughtfully, recalling the disgusting sweet drink. "There was one, light brown, tasted like…dragon's piss."
The woman laughed and clutched her chest, looking like she was enjoying herself. Yami's anxiety melted away slightly and decided to add more details, "he added salt in one…I liked that beverage. I saved a few bags of beans and gave it to a child I was watching over. I'll never understand the excitement over the taste."
"Ah yeah, now I have to taste dragon's piss to compare, because I think I know what you're talking about," the woman replied, and Yami felt himself smile for the first time in a long time. "Tastes worse with ice. Trust me."
"Oh, I trust," Yami nodded, thinking the drink was gag-inducing hot, he didn't want to imagine it cold. "Do you think they're done?" He glanced at the shadows beside them. They had parted but…not completely, still connected at the top, looking like they were engaged in an act of kissing? Or…not? Because human legs were thrown up around the sides of the shadow of a head while the top half of her body was on the other side of the bars.
"Hm. Nope. Yuck. Look away," she turned her face away to look at the wall, again looking distressed, and Yami felt a rush of sympathy, so he decided to add more exciting details about his encounter, trying to make it less…disgusting.
"When I connected with my human, he was very nice and gentle," Yami said thoughtfully, his heart warming at the memory. "But…there was a use of fingers that irritated me."
The woman sat up on the bars and stared at him, her eyes wide with interest, so Yami quickly added, "he kept politely touching my area, and put it in very gently and kept stopping. Now that was irritating."
"Aw, he was probably scared…" the woman frowned sympathetically, curling her blond hair around her index finger. "So you've never done it with a girl before?"
"I …have," Yami admitted, hoping this wouldn't invite more pushing from her, but thankfully, she looked content with listening.
"Did you hate it? How many times and did it make you never want to again?" She asked, genuinely interested, and Yami frowned, thinking about it.
"It was interesting, but with men it was…more," Yami struggled to put his feelings into words. More everything. More intense. More memorable.
"Cool. I did it with a harpie one time," she offered, as if she was saying to brag and compare. "She was nice and pretty. I wouldn't do it again, so I know what you mean."
Does she now? Yami thought with another smile and let out a tight sigh. Were they done yet?!
The woman had the same sentiment and stared listlessly at the shadows in the cell next door. They were going to be trapped here…forever…
"I have a child and I miss him," Yami said desperately, hoping to reach Seto somehow. Humans could pull strings, couldn't they?
"Aw, you have a baby? How old is he?" The woman looked instantly alert and Yami reminded himself to give a human age. Seto had held up the number 3, so…that would suffice. He was 37, so just taking off the seven ought to work.
"Three," Yami said, and the woman gasped, horrified.
"What?! How could they….put you in here? Wait, you said you saved a child demon—he's three?!" the woman shrieked, and Yami nodded, unsure if she was overreacting.
"Who's watching him now?" She demanded, looking more interested in this topic than the previous ones. "Did you put him with an adopted family? Is he okay? Is he…dangerous?"
"No, he's very smart and cheeky," Yami jumped at the chance to talk more about Seto. "I used to leave him with the innkeep in the safe town we lived in, but…after they caught me disobeying the slaughter order, they took him to a facility. Perhaps you know it? It's run by an elf named Master Dartz."
"Oh…I know him," the human woman turned pink and fanned herself. "He's hot. I'd do him in a second."
Don't know about that, Yami glowered privately, but he jumped on this chance to connect with her about it.
"Well, he's there. Could you…tell him I said I'm thinking about him? You could see Elf Dartz for a pleasure session while you're there as well," Yami asked genuinely, and she frowned thoughtfully.
"Elf Dartz is a hard one to pin down," she replied with an airy wave. "I'm not pretty enough to catch his attention, but I'll go if it's free to look at him. I'll drag a few friends. We haven't been volunteering enough. We can pass out food to the little monster kiddies."
Little monster kiddies, Yami repeated darkly, feeling a rush of disdain for the human.
"I'll visit your demon baby for you," she said, gesturing at the frosty barrier around them. "As thanks for this. Because what a fucking horror show, am I right?!"
"Fucking indeed," Yami growled, now eager to get back to sleep because all that casting had exhausted him…again.
It appeared the woman beside them was done, because she was kicking the barrier so hard, it was giving Yami another headache.
"Open up! Betch, come out of there! We're done! You're seriously such a prude!"
"I'm coming…bitch!" the woman yelled back, standing up and dusting herself off with a grimace. "What's your baby's name?"
"Seto." Yami said instantly, getting off his bench to stand closer by the bars to cast a cleaning spell down her dress, and she gave him a grateful smile.
"Ah gosh, you're too nice. I'll petition for you," she said with a wide-eyed look. "Mage name…?"
"Atem." Yami replied hopefully, and she straightened up to smile genuinely at him.
"Mage Atem, what a nice n—"
"BITCH COME OUT OF THERE! WE ARE LEAVING! Or you are still fucking him?!" A couple of other women crowded at the barrier, waving and thumping on it.
Yami hissed in annoyance, hating them all.
"He's cleaning me up!" The woman shouted, hiking her dress up to avoid getting more dirt on it. "Thanks so much—"
"CLEAN ME UP TOO!" Someone whined, and Yami froze, cold. No…
"I'm weak. I'm collared," Yami pointed desperately at the heavy metal loop around his shoulders. "This barrier took it all out of me. And your dress was the last of my mana."
"Got it, I'm not making you help them. They're not my friends," the woman whispered with a wink, giving his hand a squeeze through the bars. "Open up and I'll petition for you to get to see your kid. I'll make my bitch of a friend do it too. For lizard man over here, I'm sure she will."
"Thank you…" Yami's heart swelled, and he dropped the barrier walls slowly, seeing a group of disheveled women with smeared makeup and messy hair. The salty, putrid scent that hit him in the face was the worst, and he clapped a hand over his mouth and nose, seeing the human woman he'd been talking to do the same.
"You animals," the woman cried, and her friends crowded around her, trying to get her dirty while she shrieked. "HE JUST CLEANED ME! THAT WAS ALL OF HIS MAGIC. FUCK OFF OF ME!"
"Have some bull semen, you prude. You fucked the only elf guy here, made him put up a privacy barrier and then clean you," another woman taunted, bumping into her and getting fluid down the side of her clean dress, and Yami winced, turning away to avoid seeing any more.
"Elf strip club!" The women cheered as they exited the prison doors, and Yami was never happier to see them leave.
Gagging, Yami pulled the blanket up over his head and cast the isolation spell on the bench. Damn this place.
Or 'Fuck' this place.
Seto would say that.
Fuck this place.
Author's note:
(i got nudged to update! im sorry its been so long! i had a lot of projects going on at once. i will handle it better this year!)
monster prisoner rights matter too :grimace: yami is not having a fun time in jail. Wonder how seto's doing….