I woke up with an itching sensation in my throat and a hand placed around it and panicked, flailing slightly until I saw it was Mistress blinking down at me, and then I froze, looking up into her eyes desperately. "No, please, Mistress!"

"...Ah." She removed her hand from my throat, and gently stroked my brow. "I didn't mean to wake you, I was just healing the minor bruises and so forth from that slave using you last night."

I relaxed and nodded a little, sniffling, and she cuddled me close against her chest and I clung to her, feeling intensively submissive towards her. Had she woken me up like that on purpose just as a veiled threat? I trembled slightly in her arms. It was still really hard to trust her.

She stroked my back and murmured softly, and it was easy to just relax and stop thinking for a little while, and eventually I calmed down again.

"You okay now, Sasha?" Mistress didn't seem to be talking down to me very much at all, and I pulled back a little to look into her eyes and just saw concern.

"...yes. Thank you," Mistress? It seemed like we were talking like equals right now, so after a moment of hesitation, I continued. "Eve."

She smiled slightly and kissed me on the brow. "I shouldn't have woken you up like that, I'll keep that in mind in the future. Is it all right if I heal the rest of your body up?"

I nodded slightly, and she ran her hands all over me, softly caressing me as she made each part of my body itch until the pain went away. Not that I had really minded the minor aches I had all over, that I had gotten them fucking felt pleasantly lewd somehow, but it was nice to feel comfortable, too.

I snuggled up close to her. I did feel kind of comfortable, like she'd take care of and protect me rather than hurting me, probably, just like she used to... But I suppose we had things we needed to do, and after procrastinating a lot cuddled up to her, I felt I should bring it up. "...Can you teach me Channel before we head to visit Princess Adeline?"

Eve blinked at that, and then nodded, smiling. "Of course. Such a..." Her words started to go into a flirtatiously condescending tone, probably about to praise me for devoting myself to her, and then she caught herself, and furrowed her brow a little. "It's... best if we have the best access to our abilities we can, right?" She tilted her head and smiled at me, and it almost seemed like she was asking for my approval... at least she was trying to be equals, even if she wasn't good at it.

I smiled back and stroked her side with my palm idly. I liked the body she was in more than I had ever liked my original form, but I liked her in it even more for some reason... or... differently? I had liked her a lot when she was Sasha, too.

She started to grope my ass idly. "So Channel is actually two different spells-- the supplying side, which is what I'll be teaching you today, and the recieving side, which you should also eventually learn, but isn't as an immediate of a need. One essentially pours mana out of oneself, and the other draws from it... which means if someone is between the supplier and the reciever, they can take most of the mana for themself. Additionally, depending on the size, the supplier and the reciever can both control the flow to the reciever, although if the supplier provides much more than the reciever takes, that's not good in the long run, as it'll leave ambient mana around. Often practictioners hold hands and look into each other's eyes so they can quickly and fully communicate the flow of mana between them." Her other hand slid up to take my hand in hers, intertwining her fingers, smiling at me slyly. "It's generally considered a very intimate kind of spellcasting."

I nodded a little, swallowing as I looked down at her hands and remembered last night after dinner when she had put my mouth on my hand or something with some magic. "...what did you do to me last night? With the hand... mouth... thing?"

"Well, I couldn't cast magic on you, but I could attach portals just outside you, so that's what I did. Warp... essentially, it's again actually two spells, tying space together, but the mana it requires increases multiplicatively with both distance and size of the portal. I wouldn't recommend learning it, it's very similar in shape to Channel, and you don't want to get those two confused in a tense situation."

"...what would've happened if null had been cast on it with my lips moving through the Warp... tunnel thing?"

"It's not really a tunnel." Mistress considered this for a moment as she gave my ass another soft squeeze. "We weren't in a situation where that would happen, but it basically would've been like you slammed your lips into a wall."

"So, um, like, putting your cock through it would be a little risky?"

She raised an eyebrow, but nodded. "Why, thinking of how it would be like to be in public while I fucked your pussy and no one knew that I was utterly pounding you and you had to try to act normal?"

My face grew heated and I looked away. "Not specifically, but I guess I am now."

"Such a horny cutie." Now that teasing, flirtatious, and rather superior voice was back. Mistress's voice told you that she was in charge and she knew it and she wanted you to know it-- Princess's voice was much more relaxed, taking herself being in charge as granted. "Want to take a break where I tie you up and go fuck you in public?"

"What...!?" I swallowed and tried to think. "...why tying me up?"

"Oh, it just symbolizes how you belong to me. I was thinking last night, and the more everyone knows you're my obedient little bitch, the easier it will be to share you with everyone. It's not that I mind you having sex with other people in itself too much, just... you're mine, you know?"

Why was her possessiveness getting me wet? Did I have some sort of fetish for being owned, or was this induced by the trauma of the only safety I had being as an obedient little bitch for her as I could?

She traced her fingers against my tattoo and I moaned softly. "You know, Princess said once she's crowned, I can breed you... that's certainly an incentive, don't you think?"

"Channel! We can't breed or even have sex if we don't survive, and that's an important basic spell."

Mistress sighed softly and pulled back from me. "You make an important point." She started to teach me the exact shape of the spell, and walked me through it over and over and over again until I was able to do it once, and then critiqued my style again and again and again, until I was physically and mentally exhausted from focusing so hard on one spell, but I felt I knew the shape well enough that I could cast it if I could be calm and focus.

Noticing my fatigue, Eve went out and got food for us from the kitchen, and I stared up at the ceiling. She was acting nice now, she was trying, but could I really ever trust the woman who had tortured me? Still, I sort of had to-- unless I was willing to kill her, I was apparently one of her main goals in life, and it seemed she was ruthless and didn't have limits when it came to getting what she wanted... better that I could have a little power in a more or less equal relationship outside of sex, rather than run and be hunted down.

She was still sort of a sweetheart... she was just also someone who had been trained horribly, and possibly had terribly aggressive and controlling instincts as well. But like... she wasn't a bad dog, right? I loved her. But I was once again excusing some of her behavior by thinking of her as less than human. What did that say of what I thought of the other animalfolk? Did I let Suvera and Valentine get away with more than I usually would because I thought of them as cute animals, or just because they were hot and horny and I was incredibly submissive?

Eve was taking longer than I had thought she would. Maybe I should've gone with her, had a nice walk, and now I was thinking when I'd take her on walks back when she was Sasha. She had always gotten so eager and excited, it was cute, but now I wondered if that was part of her act as well.

It was very hard to tell where her act seperated from her actual feelings, if they even did, maybe she was all method or something... was that how method acting worked? I felt like there was supposed to be some small distance from your feelings in that.

I just wanted to be her equal and also her utterly owned and dominated slave with no decision but to obey her, was that so hard? I laughed a little at that paradoxical thought, and hugged my pillow to my chest. I wanted to cuddle and talk with Valentine, but this didn't seem like a good time for it. There was nothing major to hide from her at this point, anyways.

The door opened and Mistress came back with two trays, and I immediately shut down my ruminating that could be seen as disloyal if she read my mind... which I don't think she could, but I didn't know exactly how mindreading magic worked, if thoughts just floated out of people's heads and could be caught or something, so to be on the safe side I thought about how desperately I loved her and how I had no real plans of escaping her, I was hers and that was fine. 

"Such a cute expression," said Mistress with a smile as I realized I was definitely staring up at her, probably with my face flushed. She sat next to me and put one of the trays in my lap. Mistress always paid attention to my tastes, and this was no exception-- there were a few round fresh bread, at once fluffy and a bit dense, just a little sweet, with a little dip in the middle and a spoonful of jam of some sour fruit in the center. It's the first time I had had sour jam in the center, but I did like those breads regardless of if a little melted butter or cheese or cream or fresh fruit was put in the center. There was also some thin fried strips of meat, far less greasy than bacon and with a more gamey flavor, but one that I enjoyed, and some hardboiled eggs cut up and served with a sort of vinegrette-style dressing and small tart dried berries. I smiled up at her, and she ruffled my hair before setting into her own meal... some of the "egg salad", some of the meat, and then a gigantic steak, dangerously rare from the looks of it.

She grinned. "Do you want a bite?"

You'd think it'd taste different in our bodies, but last time I had had a bite of that, I had gotten sick to my stomach. I inhaled, exhaled. I could do this. "Sure." She blinked, surprised, then smiled and cut off a piece and fed it to me, and I chewed and swallowed it down, only feeling slightly nauseous.

"Are you sure you're going to be able to handle that, Mistress?" She blinked, and tilted her head to one side. "...my body... my former body is not used to meat that raw."

"...Ah. I did wonder why last time..." She sighed softly, not going into what had happened last time she had eaten near-raw meat in my body. She sliced her steak into thin slices in a blur, then held the plate out to me, and smiled gently. "Wanna cook it for me, Sasha?"

I blinked. Of course, Fire. I raised my hand and put a very small gout of flame out, slowly increasing, controlling the temperature as best I could and moving it around until the entire plate had been much more well-seared, and I sniffed it and perked up a little, tail wagging. I had done a good job! To my tastes, it smelled better.

She took a bite and seemed unimpressed before she thanked me... a little disappointing, but she had probably been looking forwards to her raw meat.

She fed me several more slices, and I liked it cooked much better than the rawness before, and she smiled down at me,  her eyes looking so gentle and loving that my heart surged in my chest a little. Fuck, I loved her.

We finished eating breakfast together. She put the trays outside the door in a flash, then sat back next to me and stroked my head. I leaned against her a little, and she wrapped her arm around me and held me close.