Mara's moves were languid as she stroked her hands through Iris' hair. She hardly could believe it. How had she gotten this lucky? To lay naked in the afterglow of some truly incredible sex with someone as stunning as her twin was one thing, but...the way Iris spurred her onward was something else entirely.

The thrill she got at hearing the reverence as Iris called her "MaraHandler" yesterday was pure in its corruptive magic. The moment Iris - no, IrisHound - had uttered them, Mara knew they felt...right. It was like her world bloomed into bright color at the utterance. The person she was when she'd left the transport shuttle sixteen- no, seventeen - days ago seemed like an impostor. That Mara was a stranger to her now.

Hollow smiles, swallowed bile, and bitten back rage was how that woman had understood existence. Day in and day out at Umbriel Logistics that woman had felt herself get angrier and angrier - trapped in Titus and Astrid Mercer's clutches, their claws sunk deep into her body and mind. It'd have been easier if they'd figured out how to get at that woman's heart.

It would've made the way Titus left those bruises on that woman's hips somewhat palatable. That woman could've swooned for Astrid's mind games. Instead, that woman was left knowing with unyielding certainty that she wasn't enough for either of them. That woman never would be. All that was afforded to her was a lifetime of servitude. She couldn't quit because you don't leave the Mercers: they leave you - often times as a smoking pile of wreckage - and you thank them for it.

That woman accepted it as sufficient.

Mara had killed that woman. She'd drown her in the tainted, horrible lust she felt for her sister and become something else instead. The person she was now was new. She was powerful and in command. Mind-breaking your sister into being your loyal sex slave and murder pet would do that to a girl.

The experience - the unalloyed rush she got from her pet begging her to destroy whatever was left in it that could possibly rebel - even made her understand Titus and Astrid a little better. The Mercers and all their hangers-on were all so deluded, swept up in the enchantment of what power could be. That's what that woman had thought. This Mara - new Mara, powerful Mara - knew better now. The power she held over Iris was an intoxicant more potent than any drug she'd sampled. Titus and Astrid were merely addicts, then, fallen to some primal, baser frenzy. Mara wasn't sure she was much better.

Not until yesterday. Not until she'd made her sister moan and writhe and come apart again and again for her like the obedient plaything she'd become. It'd been so easy that Mara wondered what it would be like if she'd been able to do the same to Astrid. She briefly considered enslaving Titus, too, but the thought made her skin crawl. If it were any other man who'd wronged her, maybe, but Titus? Titus didn't deserve the mercy of anything other than oblivion. Lord knows that pain wasn't a deterrent for him. Her many attempts to fight back had only spurred him forward. He'd had power over her the same way she had it over Iris, only his was physical as much as it was psychological.

She didn't forgive him, but she understood him. After all, she wasn't sure anyone with the ability to have such a potent remedy for sober thinking curled across their chest would refuse it. Could they, really, if they knew how deep they could sink? Mara loved her sister more than anything, but it didn't mean she wasn't already thinking of how next she could degrade her even more.

Yes, she was power tripping. Yes, she'd done something that was by all the counts horrific. And yes, if asked to do it all over again she would. She'd fire bomb rain forests for this. Burn stars, rip apart the fabric of the world, if needed be. Not just for her wonderful IrisHound's sake, though that would be enough. No, it was because Iris calling her MaraHandler had set off something deep within her, too.

It'd made her accept that she was irreparable, irredeemable, and beloved. Or that she could be. All it took was the right words. The right application of force, chemicals, and sweet, blasphemous truths to snap a psyche. The thundering, resounding clarity of it hit her like the shockwave of a thermonuclear airburst. It scoured away the doubt and left nothing but a construct of molten ash. She would be grave and wonderful things to so many. All she had to do was get this right. To escape unscathed.

That was tomorrow's problem, though. Today, in the here and now, she felt light. Breezy. Free.

"Hey, Iris?"

"Yeah?"

"What does it feel like for you now? I mean you're not a hound, but you're not you anymore right?"

"It's strange. If you asked me yesterday, I would've given you a different answer. I mean, I'm still IrisHound and you are still MaraHandler. I know that. And somehow, I'm...evolving through it still. I don't know that this name is the name that I want anymore. Iris. Hound. Neither of them feels right, separately or together."

"Okay, so what would feel right?"

"I don't know exactly, just that I want something that isn't Iris Faustus."

"Yeah. Tired of hiding myself, too."

"Says the girl undercover as her sister. Which, by the way, how are you planning on making sure that Rav doesn't get in trouble for this?" Iris' tone was a touch haughty and imperious, like she'd not played any role in this farce.

Mara shrugged. "I'll figure something out. I always do. I haven't thought that far ahead."

Iris bolted upright, staring at her. "You haven't thought-- Mara! How did you not think that through?"

"Because I was too busy mind-breaking you...or did you forget?"

"I really didn't." Iris leaned upward and pulled Mara into a deep and passionate kiss. Unlike yesterday, when everything was so urgent, Mara let herself take her time. They had a plan and they would execute it. Now it was time to bask. To luxuriate. Mara slid her tongue along Iris' lips before she sucked Iris' lower lip into her mouth and bit softly. It elicited the cutest little moan from Iris. Then Mara drew back and booped Iris' nose.

"No more for you. That's what you get for talking back to your Handler."

"Rude. You don't have to so obviously power trip," said Iris. She was grinning, though, and reveling in seeing Mara this way.

"I do," said Mara. "Do you know why? Because my fucked up, pervert sister really gets off on it."

"God, yeah. I do. I love watching my sister think of new ways to violate me. Fuck. It feels amazing to be able to admit that." Iris must've realized something in that moment because her eyes went wide with excitement. "Wait! Oh my god!" Her ass swayed back and forth. Mara let out a delighted giggle. Such a good puppy. "We've not talked about this! When was it for you that you knew you wanted to get all pervy with me?"

"It was the last time you, me, Astrid, and Titus all went clubbing together. They dragged us out after..." dad died, was the end of the that sentence, but Mara didn't want to say it.

Iris' brows knit together in confusion. "I don't really remember that night..."

"Yeah neither did I! Like it wasn't until years after, when Titus gave me a job that it all started to flood back. I'm guessing he and Astrid gave us a little something extra compared to the normal amount of Starlight in our drinks." Mara's heart raced, savoring that she could finally tell Iris the truth.

"Actually, I'm pretty sure it's exactly what I gave you a couple of days ago."

"When you switched it up on me?"

"Yup."

Iris snuggled in closer to Mara then, and Mara could feel Iris' dopey grin bloom against her skin. "That's real fucked up."

"Yeah...I guess I just wanted you to feel like I do. The moment it started coming back, I wanted to text you, but it took a while. And then you were so..."

"Guarded?"

"Bitchy."

Mara yelped as Iris gave her a playful but firm nip. "Hey!"

"What? I was just proving your point. I'm your bitch."

"Yes you are."

"And I'm reaaaaally good at it." Iris looked at Mara. She'd never seen Iris look at anyone with such soft and sincere pleading. Her sister - a woman who, if Imperial records were to be believed, had killed dozens of the Mechanized Infantry's best - was giving her puppy dog eyes.

"So needy for praise! What happened to the confident, cocksure Iris Chlodechilda Faustus, hm?"

"She's still here somewhere. I just...don't need to be her right now. With you I can be safe being unsafe. I don't know if I've ever felt that around anyone but you. Sure as hell not Astrid or Titus."

Mara felt herself tense, and for a moment she felt the urge to smooth things over. Mr. Mercer is a good man. He's misunderstood! He's a genius in his own right. That was the line, anyways, that she'd used to sweep away his misdeeds. Then Mara realized she didn't need to do that anymore. She'd given all of that up to become this new person. A Handler. Then her anxiety shifted into panic before she decided to set it all aside for the moment. Let tomorrow be tomorrow. Today she was going to tell the love story that she'd played back in her head day after day since she'd pieced together the memories.

"Well...if not for him, we don't get together. See that night - after he drugged us - we danced a little closer than usual and I don't know if you meant to, but..."

"But my knee went between your legs. I didn't mean to, but then you looked at me."

"And then we were close. Dancing so so close."

"I pulled myself to you. I wasn't scared."

"I wasn't scared, either. I remember how quick my heart was racing."

"And I felt so good with you there, with me, making me feel that...amazing."

"And then the next day, I woke up..."

"...and I left you." Iris' voice broke on the final word. Then she sobbed. "Oh god, I left you. And I didn't know why, Mara. I just...what you'd said at dad's funeral, it...I..." Words failed her, but Mara understood.

She remembered it, too. They'd been so lost after their father's death. Yes, they were adults; but still somehow the word "orphans" in all its childish implication felt right, too. She felt small and vulnerable and scared, huddled close against her sister against the dark tide of carrion beasts playing at being good Imperial citizens. They'd begun to creep closer in the days leading up to the funeral. At the wake, they descended en masse. Each condolence, each practiced and sympathetic smile meant to strip and pick at the last bits of flesh from the carcass of General Tarragon Nicholl Faustus' prestige, consumed for their own benefit.

Soon their hungry eyes would turn to Mara and Iris. Fresh for consumption. Mara hated it. She hated it for herself just as much as she couldn't stand the idea of what would happen if Iris had been forced to-- to marry some man.

Another such man - Blaise and Diana Tobit's son, Richard - stepped toward them. "H-hey, Amaranth. I-I just wanted to check out-- um, how you were doing? With your dad." He was slight and pale, an alabaster pillar of a boy that had only just recently become a wunderkind in his field. He'd hung around Titus for years and made moon eyes at Mara on occasion. If not for the way his gaze was openly lecherous, dropping to Mara's cleavage every time she spoke to him, she'd have found it cute.

Instead, he set her on edge, hackles raised. Now was no different. If she didn't calibrate the exact answer, he'd go off on a tangent about something and then she'd be trapped. It had happened before. He'd walked in on her, eyes red from crying after a fight with Titus junior year, and started talking about the mechanisms that controlled lateral thrust for the new series of Doru mechs. It'd lasted forty minutes before Titus had broken down the door to the room to "apologize".

"Hi, Ricky." He flinched at the nickname, which is why Mara kept saying it. "Uh, Iris and I were just talking about..."

"The wonderful miracle of menses. Do you have any thoughts on the matter, Ricky?" Iris said, matter-of-factly. Still, there was a wicked glint in her glare.

Ricky blanched, face contorting. "O-oh. I uhm...I...well, okay." He hesitated for a beat and then left.

Mara dropped her head onto Iris' shoulder, downing the last dregs of her drink. Her third in an hour. It was just enough to make the beginnings of a buzz cut through her grief.

"He was about to monologue about mech parts, I could feel it," Iris said.

"Yeah. And now he's super rich so he feels extra entitled. Astrid told me that he was 'looking for a fair maiden to bed'. Direct quote."

"Heavens help any woman who gets 'bedded' by him. I dunno how'd you recover from it."

Mara stayed silent for a long while. "What're we gonna do, Iris?"

"What do you mean?"

"You know these people."

Iris tensed. "It's...they can't just force us into marriages or something." They both knew it was a lie. These monsters could. These monsters would. Mara's eyes found Ricky again. He was chatting up an androgynous woman with red hair. She looked bored and uncomfortable.

"We could join the rebell-- mmmf!" Mara felt Iris' hand clamp over her mouth. Then she felt her sister drag her into a small alcove. They were pressed in close to each other. Each time they did this recently, got too close into each other's physical proximity, Mara felt...weird about it. Tingly.

"You can't say stuff like that at a general's funeral!" Iris hissed. "Now, I'm gonna remove my hand slowly and ow. Ow. OW! Mara stop biti- OW!" She yanked her hand away. Mara gave her a grin. Iris flicked her in the forehead.

Mara clicked her tongue. "Rude!"

Iris held up her hand. "Asshole."

"They wouldn't want me. I'm...I shuffle around papers. You're the hotshot pilot," Mara said.

Iris relaxed, leaning away from Mara. "You should think about it," she'd said, shrugging her arms. It was noncommittal, like Iris was suggesting she try a new restaurant instead of upending her whole life.

"You did leave," Mara said. "Without a word." She didn't realize how low her voice had dropped or how tightly she held Iris' hair in her fist until Iris moaned.

It gave Mara an idea. She gave Iris' hair another sharp tug, eliciting another moan, before she laxed the hold and drew her in close. Mara kissed the top of her head.

"Iris. I've decided I'm gonna punish you for that." Iris tried to turn her head to look up at Mara, but Mara stopped her.

"Don't look at me. Get off the bed and kneel." It was mean. Maybe it was too mean. Neither her or Iris knew exactly what it meant that she was now "IrisHound", but she knew that it meant Iris wasn't some perfectly obedient dog.

But Iris obeyed wordlessly...and as she slid away, there was a wild, knowing grin plastered on her face. Like she'd been expecting this. Smug. She was always so. Goddamn. Smug.

Mara could fix that. Throwing on a robe, she stood and sauntered over to a small, black leather trunk. She'd taken it from Titus. Something he wouldn't miss. His *travel* set, he'd called it. Mara kept his calendar. He'd be too busy pretending to have a business dinner tonight with Astrid - conveniently located at an extravagant and discreet upscale hotel - to much mind.

She popped the clasps one by one. Inside were many pieces of well-loved equipment. Her hand traced over a metal bar with loops on either end. Some day, but not today. For a moment she considered a small box, but she's not gotten a read on how much she could overstimulate her sister...so the remote controlled vibrator was out.

And besides...Mara wanted to hurt. She found her prize, withdrew it, and closed the trunk. As she neared Iris, she felt the butterflies in her stomach. This was all so new to her, after all. She hadn't had the luxury of getting mindfucked so hard as to be convinced she and Iris had only ever been with each other.

Up until last night, her new reality - the one that made what she'd endured worth it - was still illusory. It was seeing Iris break Cross - no, breaking Cross with her - that made Mara believe it. That's why she did it. It was a gift to her sister. A thing of purity and romance.

Or, that's what she told herself. It was a convenient narrative. She could've arranged things so that she didn't have to put Iris in the EERM machine, to control her, to make her an obedient Hound. Dad hadn't taught her recon and tactics like Iris. Instead, he'd recognized her cunning after she'd framed a maid for breaking the urn with his mother's ashes. "Amaranth Thelxinoe Faustus. I'm disappointed," he'd said. And as stern and imposing as he was, he'd had a twinkle in his eyes. "You were too sloppy."

She was six. By eleven, she'd mastered lockbreaking...or so she'd thought until she hit her teen years and Titus became more...insistent. Then, suddenly, General Tarragon Faustus just had to update everything on the estate to cutting-edge security. Truly, a Terror for Amaranth. Layers and layers of rolling generative ciphers, interlocking biometrics, and hardened surveillance gear meant that she'd had to work harder than ever. Still, even then she'd won her freedom. It took her two months. Titus had made her pay for it.

In hindsight, she'd needn't have bothered, given recent revelations. The best thing in her life had been right down the hall, no circumvention necessary. Maybe. She wasn't sure. And that was the problem: she'd always made comments towards Iris. Flirty statements meant to tease about how attracted she was to Iris. It'd started as a way to be just the right blend of subversive and appealing to the boys her age. Mara wasn't sure when she'd stopped making them in jest, or when - exactly - Iris' eyerolls had flipped from 'genuine' to 'beckoning'.

"You always wanted Hound," Iris had told her last night. She was probably right. She'd harbored these feelings for years, living for the way they made Iris shift uncomfortably. Knowing that it was because she was just as turned on by it as Mara had been made it so much better. It made it all better...and so much worse. Mara couldn't help the knot of anger and sadness that had been twisting through all the good. She needed to resolve it.

She glanced at the restraints in her hands. This would be how.

*̵̥͒*̷͕̻͉̃*̴͓̫̂̾͑*̸̡̧̟̭̄̀̓*̶̒

Mara slid a pair of leather cuffs attached by a chain around Iris' wrists. She tapped a remote and the magnetic resonators in them hummed to life. She lofted a small ball into the air. It hit its apex a foot above Iris' head and then froze in place. Mara tapped another button on the remote and Iris' arms shot up to meet it, the magnetic attractors doing an admirable job. Satisfied, she slid the remote into the pocket of her robe.

"Do you remember our 19th birthday?" Mara asked. Iris nodded. "You joked about leaving then, too."

"I did...and you. Uh." Iris' cheeks flushed. "You did something to me. I, uhm...heh. I think it was the first time I realized I had a thing for that."

Mara's hands glided over Iris' toned, well-muscled shoulders. She took time to appreciate the strength of it. She loved that it was hers to command. Her hands moved up, still, and then wrapped around Iris' throat, palms placed over her arteries.

"I was supposed to be joking around. Play acting." It was supposed to be a soft, fun wringing of the neck. Just a single hand, pulsing around Iris' throat. She'd squeezed a little harder than anything soft or fun, though. Iris gasped. Mara thought she'd hurt Iris until she saw the flush burning in Iris' cheeks...and the way her pupils had dilated.

"If we had been alone..."

"I would've had you on all fours I was so turned on," Iris said with a cocky grin.

"You're not just saying that to fluff my ego?"

"I like the collar tight around my throat because I can pretend it's your hand." Iris smirked, cocking an eyebrow. It was part challenge, part invitation.

Mara sighed, pressed their foreheads together, and tightened her grip. "You really are just so delightful now." She slackened again after a few moments, letting the flush recede from Iris' face.

"How was that?" Mara asked.

"Good."

Mara kissed her. "Good." She stepped away for a moment as Iris let a contented smile play across her face. When Mara returned, she put something in one of Iris' hands. A small metallic trinket with a loop of fabric.

"Hold onto that. If it's ever too much, you drop it or you say 'Red'. I wanna punish you, but you're still mine. And I only have the best things."

Iris nodded. Mara ran a finger down between Iris' breasts, slowing as she traced over Iris' abs. Her abs, given the ownership she had over Iris now. She pressed her finger into the taut flesh, feeling the strength. Mara found herself getting more and more distracted by Iris' body now that she had the time. There just so was so much for her to explore. She loved the ways they were similar. Gene editing in the womb meant that - on paper - they were perfect mirrors.

Yet Iris had done so much to make herself different. Mara loved it all: the honest to goodness machine oil that Iris slicked through her hair, how imposing her fitness regimen had made her...the nicks and scars on her body from piloting. She wanted to leave marks of her own. Bites and scratches. She dug in her nails and Iris groaned. Mara drank in the sound with a dark satisfaction.

Maybe she was an addict like Titus and Astrid.

Her hands went back to Iris' throat and she squeezed. She felt the thrum of Iris' life force fade as she choked off air to her mind. Not that Iris really had one of those anymore. Just the facsimile of something real. That's what the literature she'd been pouring over the past few days had said:

Emotional Engagement, Reconditioning, and Modification causes profound and lasting neural scarring.

She relaxed her grip just as she saw her father's Meritorious Conduct Medal nearly drop from Iris' hands. Iris' eyes focused again.

Test subjects discover a lasting and clear attachment to their Handler, the result akin to imprinting.

They were wrong. Here she was, proving them all wrong. She'd remade Iris in her image. Not some shambling creature that played at humanity. Iris was there. Mara could see as she squeezed tighter this time, watching the light leave her sister's eyes.

Neuroablative effects can cause any number of symptoms from euphoria, to docility, to hyper-aggression. See Appendices A ("Mutt") and B ("Hound") for psychological profiles.

She let go one last time. Iris gasped and sputtered, drool spattering across her clavicle. Mara cupped Iris' face with one hand. The other took the medal from where it hung off Iris' limp fingers. She kissed her again. Iris whimpered at the contact.

"Good job, Iris. You've earned this," Mara said, slipping the medal around Iris' neck.

"How's your head feeling?"

"F- mmmm...fuzzy?"

"Perfect."

Mara grasped the medal with one hand. Her other hand slid into pocket of her robe. She pressed a button on the remote. The attractor ball traveled forward and down in a smooth arc, pulling Iris' cuffed hands with it. It had the effect of lengthening Iris's core and forcing her onto her knees. Mara thought it looked a lot like Balasana pose. Or a still image of someone caught prostrate in worship. Yes, the latter would do just fine.

Mara's hands gripped Iris' ass.

"God, your ass. You're so exquisite." She reeled back and delivered a slap to Iris' ass. Iris yelped. Mara's hand rubbed where she's made impact, the slightest bit of soothing she would allow for Iris.

"Why did I spank you?"

"Because I'm being punished, Mistress."

She slapped the other cheek.

"And why?"

"Because I was selfish."

She slapped it again.

"Try harder, 'ris."

"Because I-I lied."

Again. Then again.

"Mmmm, but you're not getting why. Why am I punishing you?"

"Because I lo-love you?"

Mara snarled, surging forward. She pressed herself against Iris' back, feeling the way her abdominals strained and twitched, and then leaned closer. "You think your love for me is worthy of punishment?" Her voice wasn't light anymore, she knew that. What surprised her was the rage.

"Yes."

The crack of Mara's hand connecting with Iris' ass twice in quick succession echoed through the room. Iris whimpered.

"Nope." Mara sighed. "Not it." She rubbed the warm, reddened flesh of Iris' ass. "That is something you did right."

"T-then...it's because I...I left?"

Mara gave Iris another quick slap, but not with any real force behind it.

"Well, duh. But why. Why am I mad that you left?"

"Mara, I-"

Crack!

"I don'-"

Crack!

"Ple-"

Crack!

"I was SCARED!" Tears fell from Iris' face as she wept. "I didn't know what to do and you were- I didn't know if- if you really meant it so I ran! I left you. Abandoned you to Titus and Astrid and the rest. I was so stupid because you've always been beautiful and fucking PERFECT and I thought you could never...you'd never...I was never..."

Mara stood and stepped around to crouch next to Iris. She wrapped an arm around her and deactivated the attractor. Iris crumpled in her arms. Her sobs were deep. Mara joined her in them.

"I was never perfect, Iris. I just was yours. Always."

"I promise you I won't leave. I promise. I promise. I promise, Mara. Please, forgive me."

"You're forgiven. It's okay. Shhhhh it's okay."

They spent the rest of the day at peace. Yes, tomorrow would come. There would be trials to face. They had each other, though. Neither would leave. And that's all that mattered for now.

*̵̥͒*̷͕̻͉̃*̴͓̫̂̾͑*̸̡̧̟̭̄̀̓*̶̒

After Iris slipped into slumber, Mara got up and showered. She made sure to grab a small, leather-bound journal from her rucksack before heading down to the admin section of SR-21. At this time of night, only a single guard stood watch. His name was "Ollie", or something. Close enough for government work, anyway.

"Hey, Ollie," Mara said.

"Ma'am."

He stood aside and let her walk into the office of Warden-Commander Adeline Frieze.

"Ah, good!" Adeline said, giving her a wide smile. She held two tumbler glasses and a bottle of expensive scotch. "Caught me just as I was getting ready. Please, have a seat, Ravella."

"Here, I'll trade you," Mara said, holding out the journal. "You read, I'll pour."

Adeline gave her an affectionate smile and held out the bourbon bottle. Mara took it and handed her the journal.

"This is the best part of my day," Adeline said, sinking into her seat and flipping open to where the red linen bookmark indicated she'd stopped last time. Once she was properly engrossed, Mara uncorked the bottle. It only took the quickest sleight of hand to break the capsule and empty the contents into it.

Then she poured two glasses, two fingers each. She handed one to Adline and then took a seat, marveling at the turnaround in her fortunes. The woman seemed pathologically immune to Mara's attempts at charming her the first few days she'd been on base. Still, Mara knew people like Adeline Frieze. Military lifers still worshipped the ghost of her father's achievements. When she'd provided her with an excerpt of her father's journals during the First Esthlocelic Campaign, Adeline and 'Ravella' became the best of drinking buddies.

Thankfully, Ravella's impulses to prove herself despite her last name meant she'd subtly alienated a great number of people in the military. That was the problem with merit in the Imperial Core: nobody actually accounted for it. Oh sure, they'd nod to someone here or there as a story of how "you can make it, too"! Adeline Frieze was one such person.

Still, she couldn't help poring over the journal of her favorite general. Mara took the opportunity to ingratiate herself. She spoke of the towering man her father was -- how compassionate he'd been to his subordinates, how innovative he'd been in the development of the Bastion line...

...How principled he was in the face of his business partner's corruption. As she mentioned the name "Torai", there was a quirk of Adline's lips.

"Heh. Speaking of...how're things between you and the Handler-Major?"

Mara gulped, letting the whiskey burn down her throat. "Fine."

"You sure? She seemed...adamant not too long ago about your dismissal. What changed?"

"I..." Mara thought of the hangar bay. She thought of how she'd made a risky gamble. There was something in that woman's glare that made her trust the anger that welled up in her in that moment. She knew it'd cow her. It was only after that she'd realized who it was. But that was tomorrow's problem. "I appealed to her sense of decorum."

The Warden-Commander eyed her skeptically over her tumbler, then let out an inebriated snort. "Well, cheers to that."

Mara clinked glasses. She hoped the dose would make this easier. It wouldn't affect her, but it'd make the Warden-Commander pliant enough. She didn't want to use it. Adeline seemed like a decent person. In observing her, Mara noticed she'd seemed...displeased at the way some of the Handlers on base reveled in the sadism.

After she'd broken into Adeline's personal files the first week, it didn't take long for Mara to confirm that she didn't take any pleasure in what she had to contend with as the overseer to these atrocities. There were plenty of missives between her and High Command, asking if there were other ways to garner the same results. She understaffed the Hound program in every way she could without triggering any further investigation.

In other words, Adeline was Mara's best asset. If anyone else had been in charge, her job would've been far more difficult. As it stood, though, all it took were a few grainy photos of Mara in pharmacy store makeup to pass as Ravella. Well, that and a fair amount of doctoring an excuse as to why Ravella - who'd dropped off the grid - was back at SR-21 after her ignominious departure.

The most difficult part was pulling Iris out of that first EERM session and getting her re-assigned to 'Ravella Faustus'. It'd taken burning a bridge with one of her father's best friends. Aunt Petra - Brigadier General Petra Seward - would never talk to Mara again after what she'd done. It didn't matter. All that mattered was the mission. Her father had taught her that, long ago.

And Iris was Mara's mission. It made her decision to spike Adeline's bourbon bottle that much easier. It was a risk, but one she felt was worth taking.

Adeline slumped forward, her gaze lidded.

"Adeline, you won't remember this. You'll remember to forget."

"Remember...forget..."

"Good. Now, I need access to the Umbriel Logistics Core."

"Ensign...too...low..."

"Yes, too low. We wouldn't want to get you in trouble. With this latest insurgent being broken, though, you know that I've earned a promotion."

"Earned..."

"And I'm such a good drinking companion."

"Companion..."

"Drinking companion. You wouldn't want to get any lurid ideas about a subordinate, right?"

"Lurid..."

"Okay, this has gotten away from me," Mara said, sotto voce. "Adeline. You'll promote me to Handler-Major."

"Promote..."

"It'll be your idea."

"Mine..."

"I've done exemplary work."

"Exemplary..."

"As you feel your mind return, you'll remember to forget this, but you'll still know it. Deep breath, Adeline."

Adeline did as instructed, drawing in a deep breath through her nose. As she did, her eyes moved from glassy to alert. Adeline sat up, regaining her martial posture. "This may come as a shock, but...I've been thinking for quite some time, Ravella, that you're languishing under Handler-Major Torai's leadership. That EMPTY ENGINE business left a bad taste in my mouth. Anyway, 'Handler-Major Ravella Faustus' has a rice ring to it. I pulled a few strings. Your access band will reflect the changes by tomorrow, but the actual hardware won't get here for another week."

Mara held back the grin that wanted to overtake her, just as she did the urges that formed at the memory of the breathy way that Adeline had said the words "lurid" and "companion" moments ago. The mission was what mattered. She gave a curt salute.

"Thank you, sir. It's an honor, sir."

"Ah, don't mention it." Adeline's hands fell to the journal, her hands tracing it with fondness. "You don't mind if I keep this for a bit longer, do you?"

"I wouldn't trust anyone else with it." Mara answered. That it was one of a number forged copies she'd made years ago to sell to private bidders didn't make the words any less true.

*̵̥͒*̷͕̻͉̃*̴͓̫̂̾͑*̸̡̧̟̭̄̀̓*̶̒

She bade herself adieu and returned to her room. The door opened with a loud CLUNK! that Mara could never bring herself to get used to. It sent a jolt of annoyance through her every time. Still, nothing could bother her, really, when on the other side of that door was the great love of her life.

Her sister, Iris, leapt up from her bed when she saw who it was. She bounded up to Mara and wrapped her arms around her neck before giving her a deep, longing kiss. Mara returned it for a moment before--

"Mmm. Dog breath," Mara said, pulling away.

"Heh, sorry! I just got excited is all," Iris said. "How'd the meeting with Frieze go?"

"Just as well as expected."

"Good," Iris said, squinting her eyes. Mara knew that look. She was planning. That wouldn't do. "So that means that all that's left to do is--"

Mara pressed a finger to Iris' lips. "Shh. No more thinking for you today, okay?"

Iris pouted. "What do you wanna do instead?"

Mara thought again of the meeting she just had. "You're gonna play Warden-Commander, and I'm gonna be the naughty inmate who needs to be put in my place."

Iris was all too happy to oblige.