Since she asked for more, I continued to bully Valentine, making her move to the bed and lie down and caressed her and bit her ears and nipples and slapped her breasts and face, escalating in the strength I was putting into both to see more of her cute reactions, getting kind of lost in the power of being able to inflict feelings on her and Valentine writhing beneath me as little as she could, doing her best to just take it no matter what I did. I cast a finger-sized Fire and started to burn her arm, and she held still and tears started running down her cheeks, somehow not whimpering as she just endured it.

Suddenly I felt sick to my stomach. How different was I from the person I rescued her from when we first met, exactly?

I ended the spell, drawing back my hand before she caught my arm gently in her powerful grip. "It's okay, you can keep going." I shook my head a little, covering my mouth, worried I'd vomit all over her. After a few moments I got in control of myself enough to cast the Heal spell, although my hand itched the first time I cast it, and I had to recast it, before I gently drew my hand over everywhere I had hurt her, healing the wounds I had made, which also made her do her best to hold still and not squirm.

I felt a little better, and started to withdraw from her, only to have her pull me down gently but firmly into a big hug.

"Hey, you okay Sasha?" Her voice was calm, despite her eyes being filled with tears.

"No, I'm... just, how am I different from them?"

"...different from who?"

"The man who was beating you, Mistress, Princess Asperia... any of them." Valentine frowned slightly.

"Could you not put that man in the same category as my goddess?"

"Yeah, sorry... but here I am, enjoying tormenting you." Valentine blinked.

"What's wrong with that?" I stared down at her for a long moment, unable to verbalize how hurting helpless girls was just, you know, bad. She smiled and licked my cheek.

"I was enjoying it too, though?"

"Yeah, well... it still makes me feel like a monster."

"Huh."

We cuddled silent for a little while, before Valentine spoke up again.

"Hey, Sasha, what's the difference between a sparring match and just walking up into the street and wailing on them?"

"Uh... person with the sparring match has agreed to it? ...ah. I see what you're saying. You agreed to it. But what if I'd torment people if I had power?"

"You've had actual power, more than most. Did you torment people with it?"

"...not usually. Well, that wasn't the point, at least." I sighed. "I still feel bad, though." Valentine nodded.

"It's okay, I don't expect people to enjoy tormenting me, we don't have to ever do it again." I stared down into her eyes.

"You sure you weren't just letting me hurt you out of guilt for betraying me? Or so I'd run out of anger at you?"

"Uh... I do my best to not feel emotions like guilt, Sasha. Waste of time." She let go of me with one arm, petting my cheek gently as she smiled up at me. "You feeling less angry at me now?"

"...yeah... don't feel guilt, and you even enjoy pain... what's the point in being angry? I don't see how I could hurt you emotionally unless I like, hurt you for real."

"Mmm, I think you could more than most. Saving me, being so righteous, forgiving me for betraying you, hurting me really good... kind of crushing on you, to be honest."

"...who said I forgave you?" She shrugged, seemingly entirely unshaken.

"Well, less angry, at least." I rolled my eyes.

"Fine, I forgive you, Valentine. Though don't expect me to trust you with important secrets ever again." She winced at that, but then a smile slowly spread across her face.

"Yeah, that's fair. Thanks, Sasha." She ran her fingers through my hair, and gently trailed them down along the side of my neck and my arm, causing me to gasp a little just from her gentle touch. "Let me know if there's anything I can do for you... and I don't just mean that in a Mistress/Slave context. I like you." She gently took my hand and kissed the back of it. I felt my face heating up. It was rather unfair that she was so suave, on top of everything else.

"...you're a better Hero than I ever was." She grinned.

"An animalfolk hero? Can't say I hate the sound of it. But there's always gonna be someone better, someone stronger in one kind of match or another, y'know? You can't let yourself get hung up on that. All you can do is do your best, follow what you believe in, be as obedient as you can, and try to survive to the next day." I kissed her softly.

"That almost sounded inspirational without the 'be as obedient as you can'."

"Sasha, as a slave, if you're ever going to actually betray your master, it should be at the opportune moment, in one shot, sudden, and deadly. At all other times 'be as obedient as you can' applies. Now, if you can't stomach hurting someone for your master's sake or whatever? Sure, good for you. Follow your heart over your collar. But expect to be punished if you do, and when it's not an actual issue of something you care deeply about, you might as well surrender."

I opened my mouth, almost telling her of how Mistress had betrayed me-- but no, that was a bad move, she'd definitely just tell Princess Asperia. I sighed and relaxed on top of her as she petted my head.

"I just wish there was someone I could trust absolutely."

"That's a rare luxury, for a slave... probably for a real person too. Did you have anyone like that back in your world?" I thought back on my parents and brothers and friends, all of whom I had slowly drifted away from even before I had been summoned. All of whom I felt like I had to hide parts of myself around.

"...no, not really. And stop calling people who aren't slaves 'real people', that's fucked up." Valentine shrugged.

"That's just what they're called, though. What's the point in fighting it? You look at your world, and our world, and every single thing that you think is worse you want to change, don't you? I admire that drive, but it's ultimately hurting you, isn't it?"

"I should be stronger. Smarter. I should be able to save everyone. Instead, I'm an utter failure of a Hero."

"...you should hear the stories of some of the other previous heroes. Just because you got dragged into this reality doesn't make you any different." I shook my head firmly.

"It does. I was brought here for a reason." Valentine stared past me for a moment, before looking back up into my eyes.

"My ancestors were dragged into this reality, or so our stories go."

"...what?"

"Animalfolk were summoned before humans for another world. On average, we were stronger and more skilled at magic. At first, when there were just a few of us, we were called Heroes. It all went downhill as they summoned more and more of us to do their dirty work, though, and they wanted us to fall in line, and becoming afraid of our, magical power they made the collars... and at some point, it became cheaper to breed us and wait than summon us. Summoning is a very complex magic, after all."

"Wait... are they going to do that with people from my world, too?" She smiled and kissed my eyebrow.

"Only one hero from your world can be summoned at a time, I think? The exact process is a secret of the royal family, though. Could be afraid that if more than one got summoned, they'd get conquered. If they're all like you, though, I don't think we need to worry about that."

"...it's a valid concern, they're not all like me. I do wonder if summoning a few more would be possible, though... feels pretty lonely."

"Could be they'd kill you."

I heard a growl beneath me, and blinked as I realized it was Valentine's stomach.

"...did you eat something yet today?"

"Maybe not enough."

"I could eat lunch myself. Want to go to the kitchen?"

"Sure!" I slid up off her, and looked through my closet, feeling like I wanted to wear something closer to actual clothes. This felt suspiciously like going out to a diner the morning after we fucked or something. Only we didn't fuck, I just tortured her a little... oh, and made her cum, I guess that is kinda fucking, since neither of us have dicks, so there's not any of that official 'sex happened here' breakpoint, below which you could conveniently sort of pretend it wasn't really sex.

I ended up putting on a cute but practical outfit I had gotten for Sa--... for this body before... some nice brown boots, tight-fitting green pants and blouse, the latter having white lacing up the center that showed off just a little cleavage, and a hooded cloak over the top-- though I threw the hood back. It wasn't a clothing combo I remembered seeing women wear in this world, but it very much felt like 'adventurer' clothing, and made me feel a little more heroic somehow.

Valentine fixed and cleaned up her own clothes as best she could -- our sizes were too different for me to be able to lend her anything -- and the two of us headed out of my room.

Velt was lying on her couch there, and seeing me and Valentine, gave us both a smile and a wink. "You two have fun?"

I flushed, and hid behind Valentine as she grinned and nodded, entirely unphased by the question.

"Yup!" She put an arm around my shoulder, and started guiding me back towards the kitchen slash cafeteria thing they had going on. Wait. Were we a thing? Were we sort of dating or something? I had always kind of thought of myself as exclusive with the one who had betrayed me, no, not Valentine, my Mistress, and like... I was kind of forced to have sex and then had sex on purpose, but doing relationship stuff felt like I was breaking another boundary. But no, fuck Mistress, it's her fault for treating me like this. If she had just been loyal to me, I would've been loyal to her.

Valentine arm around my shoulder tightened and held me in place for a moment as she gently cleared the tears from my eyes.

"It'll be okay, Sasha." There was something very reassuring about her soft and low voice. This was a woman who had been through a thousand battles, after all. And she liked me. And she was the second most physically powerful person I had ever seen. And she... probably wouldn't ever force me to do anything. I sniffled a little and managed to stop the flow of my tears, and nodded to her resolutely, and we continued on to the kitchen.

I had gotten a few slices of fruit pie and one slice of a meat one, while Valentine had grabbed the remainder of the meat pie, an entire loaf of bread, a round of cheese, and a bottle of wine. Was that allowed? No one seemed to be calling her out on it, though, so I guess it was, or Valentine had enough star status to get away with it... I guess it made sense she needed to eat so much, as well, given her size. We sat down at an empty end of a table, and I was just taking the first bite of my moonfruit pie as a woman with lizard hands strode up to us, slamming a piece of paper on the table. Valentine smiled up at her, unruffled.

"Yeen?" She glared down at both of us in turn.

"I am not a jealous woman, but that was extremely rude of you both to send me off to find beginner magical reading recommendations for you, and then abscond together to fuck." Her gaze shifted to Valentine. "You could have simply told me you weren't interested."

"Ah. I guess we kinda did, huh? Sorry, we--" Yeen held up her hand and interrupted Valentine.

"I don't want to hear it. I hope you're both quite happy with your current forms, because I will never help either of you change unless directly ordered to." She turned on her heel and strode away.

I took the piece of paper and looked it over... looked like beginner book recommendations. I blinked a couple of times.

"Is she a tsundere?" Valentine blinked.

"A... a what?"

"Um, someone who is outwardly cold or hostile but actually friendly deep down?"

"...interesting, that's common enough a thing on your world that you have a word for it?" I flushed slightly and looked away, feeling a little embarrassed.

"...it's a niche cultural thing. Is she, though?" Valentine thought about this for a long moment.

"Sasha, I got into this harem the same day you did, I don't really know her."

"But you were going to sleep with her it looked like?" She blinked, then smiled.

"Well, yeah, that's a good way to get to know each other better, don't you think?"

...I guess I had forgotten she was somehow even sluttier than I had been being recently. Wait... was I feeling jealous now?

If I had a jealousy-level crush on Valentine, that was... bad.