I had fallen asleep, and woke up laid out on one of the carriage seats -- it was practically a couch on each side, really -- with my head in Master's lap. I could feel her cock hard against my cheek, and glanced up, but she was breathing easily... apparently asleep.

I finally had some slim chance against her, but with Valentine in her current situation, she'd be an outlaw or something if she ran away with me. I mean, she was now already, but the idea was to see if we could get Princess Asperia to pull some strings and save her.

I realized Master's thighs were surprisingly soft beneath my head, and looking up, her face looked more feminine... was I projecting my preferences onto her body? Did that mean I was falling for her and looking at her with rose-colored glasses or something?

I think I loved her less than when she was my slave-- mostly because I thought she loved me, but also because she didn't torment me all the time. I do think she at least liked me, though, on some level. Even if only as a pet or toy or something. I stretched and shifted a little, and her cock twitched against my cheek at the stimulation through her pants.

Well... that's one way I could prove my devotion to her. She was complaining yesterday how I always let her initiate things, and now I could initiate something... I had always lowkey wanted to be woken up with oral, and waking her up with oral was getting me a little excited... probably her influence, but that didn't mean it was a bad idea.

I turned myself over, propping my front up on an elbow, and reached in to start undoing the tie on the front of her pants, rubbing her cock a little with the palm of my hand, eliciting a cute little moan from her... sounded almost submissive? I started to pull down her pants a little, and suddenly I felt her hand around my throat with crushing strength, and couldn't breathe or talk.

I was just trying to be a good girl and wake you up with a blowjob, Master! Please forgive me please forgive me please forgive me!

I tried to send all my submissive devotion and the scattered fragments of the love I had left for her towards her, and her hand slowly relaxed on my neck. I breathed shuddering painful breaths.

"...Oh. I'm sorry." She stroked my neck gently all over, healing it back to normal. "With the... dreams I usually have, my instinct is to lash out when I feel something messing with me."

"Sorry, Master...."

"No, I should've told you... never thought you'd actually initiate anything, though. She petted my head and scratched behind my ears, and I nuzzled into her hands. "You're really trying my best for me, aren't you?"

"Yes, Master!" I buried all my other thoughts towards her underneath my desperate devotion to serve her and be accepted by her.

"Mmm... I think I've tortured your throat enough for this morning... since you're being so very good, I think I'll make an exception and let you cum. It will be very quick, though. How many times do you wanna cum, pet?"

"...three?" I was a little cautious, last time she had pretended to give me control over my orgasms, she had instead fucked me over and over again. But it would be nice to spend some time with her trying to pleasure me....

Master laughed a bit sadistically, my eyes widening as I looked up at her, and pulled me up in her lap, eagerly groping me all over... with the promise of orgasms, I was still very excited, rubbing my body against hers eagerly.

She leaned down to kiss me on my lips, and a spike of pleasure went from my lips straight down into my groin, my body tensing and spasming as my mind was overwhelmed by a bright burst of pleasure.

I moaned into her lips, panting breathily as she pulled back and petted my cheek, my body still twitching here and there with pleasure.

"One," she announced before leaning in to kiss my neck. A sensation of intense helplessness and pleasurable surrender flowed through me, overwhelming my mind and leaving my body twitching against hers again as my pussy leaked love juices that trickled down my thighs, whimpering moans escaping my lips.

"Two," she commented, before picking me up in the air and kissing me through my clothes right on my clit, that incredibly sensitive little button suddenly overwhelmed by intense pleasure, and I screamed as my body shook and I grabbed onto her shoulders with all my strength.

"Three... and there you go, Sasha." She snuggled me back down into her lap, a whimpering pleasured mess drooling from both my mouth and my lower mouth, trembling softly against her.

"Now, very quick, as I said, I'm going to need to focus undisturbed most of today... but if you keep being a good girl, I'll give you a long night full of attention once we're done with our mission, okay?"

I nodded a little against her chest, which drew a soft gasp from her.

I looked up at her quizzically, and she smiled down at me.

"You'll see soon enough. Let's go eat breakfast and get everyone together… we should make sure we’re on time to make it to Night Court, since we don’t know what all Adarvuin is doing behind us."

On the carriage ride, Master announced she needed to focus on her meditation, leaving me staring awkwardly out of the cart for most of the ride, while Valentine did some other sort of mental practice with her eyes closed. Maybe she was meditating too, it didn’t seem like the right time to ask.

Without the people, we could’ve been traveling along any rustic road on my world… as long as I didn’t look too carefully at the crops or architectural style or anything, and just kept my gaze a bit unfocused. Then again, it’s not like I was an expert on what plants looked like… maybe there was somewhere these plants and this architectural style existed.

I practiced magic, looked up at the clouds and told myself stories of them, and thought uselessly about Princess Asperia and the Night Court.

Other than being pretty and kind to me other than ripping me out of my world, I didn’t really understand Princess Asperia’s personality. There were rumors of her doing all sorts of things, of course, but it was hard to sort out the actual events from the propaganda… she was the Crown Princess, but her younger sister Adeline was in many ways more accomplished and more popular, and the rumors were that there was something of a power struggle going between them.

If so, I think Princess Adeline was winning-- I never heard bad stories about her. Of course, I heard less stories about her in general… but that could be because people thought I was on Princess Asperia’s side, being summoned by her and all. I hadn’t really thought of myself as having a side, though, but it seemed like both Valentine and Master were heavily considering throwing in their lots with her.

My mind drifted back to the first times I had fought in this world-- easily dispatching and crippling my opponents when I was just trying to disable them, and vomiting afterwards. I still wasn’t used to the feel of the local fabric or anything then, and Princess Asperia had pretended not to notice my various inadequacies… either out of politeness, or because she didn’t want to have the responsibility of trying to fix them.

I had always found her hard to read, but at least I knew she was hard to read, unlike the whole situation with Master, where I used to think I knew her, and now I wasn’t sure if the face she was showing to me was her real face, either. It definitely seemed like she either liked me or had some use for me, though… maybe both.

The clouds were frustratingly abstract as I looked for shapes in them, maybe they mimicked alien shapes on this world which I hadn’t seen yet.

Maybe I could tell if Master liked me or simply wanted to use me if I defied her a bit more… but if she stopped liking me, or I stopped being convenient to use, that’d be a big problem, wouldn’t it?

I only had a chance against Master if I had the first strike, and I probably couldn’t bring myself to kill her… something about thinking about killing the woman who at least pretended to love me made me want to vomit again. Maybe this was some of her mind magic too.

I had practiced that tiny Heal spell dozens of times, now, and my finger didn't itch at all. I should’ve asked to ride up front with Miravel or something. With nothing concrete for my mind to focus on, I became less and less focused as I stared off across the farmlands we were passing by.

A little tap to my forehead, and I woke up with a jolt to see Master smiling down at me… I had fallen asleep in the carriage, apparently, and I was being carried in her arms. She looked even prettier than this morning… wait, was she wearing makeup? She was absolutely wearing makeup, it wasn’t even that subtle. My mind squirmed uncertainly at the idea of the body that was once mine wearing makeup, but I quickly settled on the fact that newscasters and actors both wore makeup, and Master was certainly an actor, which helped distract me from being uncertain if I liked the idea or it caused unease in me.

Valentine had her hood and mask on again, and Miravel was cooing over her and flirting with her… it looked we had stopped outside of the stables, and this was where we’d part ways. She spared a glance, smile, and wave for me, before Valentine reluctantly pulled away from her gentle grasp and came to join me and Master.

I glanced up at Valentine as Master set me down and we began to walk along the streets of Aifen in the setting sun… still a fairly nice part of the city, it looked like, although not the noble’s district, there were no trees lining the streets or fountains, but at least it was clean, and there were a lot of slaves around.

“Do you think you’ll see her again?”

Valentine shrugged under that bulky cloak. “Who can say what fate will bring?” She sounded a little wistful. I wondered if this was a special connection she had had with Miravel, or if she fell just a little in love with everyone she slept with. I thought a moment what it would like for her to be a little in love with me. Of what it would be like to watch her move on with the tides of destiny or whatever, drifting off out of my reach forever. Bittersweet.

Master reached over and ruffled my hair. “I’m sure Miravel will be fine. She has a less risky path than all of us, at least.”

As we traveled along, I saw an old dog-girl woman… dog-woman? Dog-lady…? ...regardless, she lay limp, and she was being carried by a man in a black hood in a fireman's carry, and all the other slaves were looking away from the two of them. I looked up to Master, and she turned her gaze away from mine, then over to Valentine, who turned her head away a little, though it was hard to tell where she was looking.

“What’s happening?” I certainly got the feeling that it couldn’t be anything good.

“Animalfolk,” said Valentine gently, “are only allowed to live while they’re owned. So if their owner decides to get rid of them, and there’s no real prospects to selling them… they’re usually taken for arena fodder.”

I narrowed my eyes, and started striding forwards, before immediately feeling myself stopped by Master’s grip on my shoulder.

“This happens every day, Sasha. What exactly are you planning on doing?” There was more anger in her voice than I expected.

“I don’t know, we just have to save her: she’s right in front of us.”

“To go where? Adventuring with us? That’s probably a death sentence too.”

“Who are we exactly if we don’t save someone who’s about to die right in front of us?” Master shook her head.

“How many people have you killed? Do you think none of them were forced into the life of banditry or to serve their lord or whatever?”

“That’s not the point! Maybe I fucked up before and hurt someone who didn’t deserve it, but I’m not going to this time!” I glared up at her, my vision of her blurry because of tears. We were drawing a lot of attention. I opened my mouth to speak again, but Master had taken away my words again… and her focus wasn’t even on me, she was glancing around the street we were in with furrowed brow.

“...where did Valentine go?”