The Erotic Mind-Control Story Archive

“What the fuck are you waiting on, girl?”

The man’s old, but still smooth voice traveled up her spine and stomped her soul. Again. She’d long ago learned how to respond without actually listening. She could pick up on key words without thinking about it. Her ears picked up on his exceptionally vexed tone and ‘waiting on’ as she continued to gather the ale and spirits onto the tray to take them out to be served to another night of drunkards and people generally just waiting to fuck. “Just loading up to get everything out, Mr. Roanes.”

The lanky figure behind her was unimpressed. “Every time I look, you’re back behind the bar for something or other instead out out there like you’re supposed to be. All you women ever do is fuck around here and in the back. At least the girls fucking around upstairs make me money.

‘All you ever do,’ touched her ear. “Sorry, Mr. Roanes, it’s busy tonight.” Never mind that this was how things worked. Orders were taken, then filled behind the bar or from the kitchen, then those orders were taken to the customer. It was a simple process that mandated that at least half her time wasn’t going to be out front. Also never mind that when she was out front he was just as annoyed that orders were backing up. There was no winning.

Short definition of my life.

“Get your ass out there and do your job before I find someone else to do it.”

That, she heard a dozen times a night, so, at this point, all it did was cue her brain to say, “Right away, Mr. Roanes.”

The rest really was automatic at this point. She walked out with her tray into the shouting of profanities and threats, belly laughs, and clanging mugs and steins as another night passed in the brothel, same as the last hundred nights and same as the next thousand, most likely. This place wasn’t one of the nicer brothels in the larger cities like Erette or the unofficial pleasure city of the world of Varane. In brothels like those, things were calm, almost sedate. You could walk in, have a fine wine or spirit, and converse with the near-courtesans about about anything, from the specifics of that wine, to the intricacies of court politics. One could spend an entire night there doing just that.

Mr. Roanes liked to call this place a brothel because he thought it gave the place class and that, by extension, elevated him, but this was a whorehouse, and one of not much repute on top of that. But it was enough money to live and just a little bit extra after she paid her rent. So she dropped two ales at the table with the fat man in red and his friend while giving them her usual smile while they never bothered to look up. She gave two glasses of wine to the table with the scruffy, jowly merchant sailor with Lola on his lap, giving her usual smile while making sure to remember that the one diluted to almost nothing was closest to her and that one went to Lola who gave a wink in return for the smile.

And the tankard of stout went to one of the shadowy corners where Betta was already bouncing vigorously on a cock. Sometimes the men were so hard and anxious to get rid of that hard and their money there was no waiting for a room to open up. Mr. Roanes didn’t care. As long as they paid it was fine. He also considered it advertising the skills of his girls. She didn’t bother to smile at either of them.

At least she didn’t have to worry about being groped overmuch like some of the other barmaids. She was young in body, but that’s all she felt as though she could lay claim to in the world, as that body was decidedly unremarkable by itself. Small scars from the blemishes almost everyone dealt with as they grew up marked her face. Hints of almost perpetual fatigue sat under eyes, and, for that alone, she subconsciously avoided mirrors when she could get away with it. As much as she was grateful that she could simply do her job in relative peace, she admitted to herself that if someone actually did paw at her once or maybe twice a year it’d be something she could live with.

Looking at herself now, she couldn’t imagine herself when she was old. How much different would it really be? she wondered in those moments. Some days she felt like she were a hundred years old already, which reminded her of how both her parents looked day in and day out for as long as she could remember. Her father always managed to find a smile and cheer for her and her siblings, though how that happened she honestly didn’t know and she’d always meant to ask. He always managed to be grateful for what they had even when it was next to nothing.

Mara wasn’t greedy. She didn’t need to have more than she could spend in a million lifetimes like any of the High Houses, or be so important that the queen would ask for her company for tea. She just wanted enough to take care of herself, a little beyond that to spend, and not have to work quite so hard for it. Or maybe just work in a place not this.

But Mara’s life was what it was.

A loud voice and a hard tug at her dress took her from her thoughts. “Lakaberry wine, ya fucking ugly wench!”

She looked down at the man sitting at the table and marveled at the irony of his words given the fact that he was virtually toothless and so gnarled by life that, at first glance, he looked as if he had been born deformed...but only at first glance. She sighed. She’d been called far worse, and the fact that that she had been called ugly by a man whose looks had to improve to make it to ugly actually lifted her spirits in a crazy, backward way.

“Right away,” she said, putting on her work smile once again.

“Fuckin’ right, right away.”

Hearing that seemed to be the cue for half a dozen more patrons to pipe up, but, fortunately, only three of them were in her section. She committed the orders to memory and started to make her way back to the bar to start the cycle over again for what seemed like only the third time out of the infinite number of loops that she would expect to make this night.

That was the moment that Mara realized that this wasn’t going to be like all the nights before. The corner of her eye caught the main doors opening. She turned her attention to them fully expecting to see another customer or customers coming in, as it was the time of night where many a young man drank enough courage at a regular tavern to find his way here to drink some more and rent a whore while they were at it and the night was still young. Or the sailors, both merchant and military would come in to spend their money and their time, particularly over the next few hours.

As she turned to look, she registered a female form, which was also not unheard of with women looking for work, looking for their husbands, or looking to use a woman themselves, though the latter were rare because, honestly, there were more female-friendly places to go. Women only came here to use or be used with extra zeal. Or because shame made them wet, and there was plenty here to make them wet. Not only did Mara catch sight of two women, which was something that had never happened before, she caught sight of two women the likes of which she’d never seen in this place that so captivated her that she was compelled to stare.

They didn’t belong here, yet they carried themselves as though they were royalty; as though they owned anywhere they were simply because it’s where they chose to be. Both tall, the one that was a bit taller had hair as black as the night, her eyes a light brown with gold flecks, and skin slightly lighter than the brown of her eyes. There was pride in those eyes. There was determination and conviction in those eyes. Everything was in those eyes that searched the room, threatening to consume everything with their, even from what Mara could see from here, limitless depth.

The other had hair a sunny blond and eyes an icy blue that, even from here, looked as though they were piercing everything she gazed into, as she slowly surveyed the room. She knew that look from when the soldiers would, on occasion, come in to look for their others who were late in returning for duty. She was looking for threats, despite her casual stance that seemed designed not to provoke. They both wore outfits that fit them like second skins, hugging their curves and lacing at the front much like a corset. The brunette’s was as black as her hair, while the blond wore hers in the color of a red wine. And, on the right wrists of both, was a bracelet of brushed silver with what looked like fine engraving. Some of the men catcalled and offered coin for their services which the women completely ignored.

A coin hit her in the head before hitting the floor. “Waiting for a fucking tip, you stupid bitch? There it is, now get me my fucking drink.”

She looked down to see an old, weathered, ship’s coin, the types of coins that captains gave out to crew members after a term of service as a remembrance of the time. Beyond value to the sailors that received them and occasionally compared them using arbitrary criteria in the moment to decide who would buy drinks, and to collectors, they were only worth the metal they were printed on.

“It’s on the way,” she said, the words rote and distant as she watched the dark-haired one approach the bar. Mara ended up walking parallel and slightly behind her as they headed for the same place. Behind the bar, she sat her tray down and started pulling out the needed glassware. For once, she was glad for work that she could do without thinking about it, as that allowed her to glance over on occasion and listen in without missing a beat.

The dark-haired woman smiled as Roanes as he spoke, playing at straightening the wrinkles from his shirt so as to feel more important than he was for a moment. “I do have the best ladies in all of Erette. I don’t waste effort in making a palace where people just come to wile away the hours talking about the issues of our day. My place is a place where people come to release the tensions of life with some of the most beautiful women in the world. That’s where my resources go, and Salli is one of my newest finds. How did you hear of her so quickly?”

The woman’s response was smooth and friendly, “Oh, my girlfriend and I are always on the lookout for new treats and she came recommended. Even if she hadn’t been, just hearing about her would be enough to bring us by because she’s exactly the type of young woman I seek out.” Her voice took on a dreamy quality. “I love the ones that are just starting out. They’re not broken or jaded yet. The innocence is still there to be seen. It’s so,” she quivered, “intoxicating.”

Mara closed her eyes and set her jaw, annoyed with herself for letting her attention be caught by two women coming in on an otherwise, uneventful night just because they looked different. They were the same. Everyone that came in here was the same. Everyone that came in here did it to use someone, and it was those like them that just took a little bit more from the people they used. It wasn’t just enough to use someone physically, even if they paid a token sum for the privilege; people like these two fed off pieces of young souls, getting off on taking a sliver and watching the rest die just a little more inside. People like them were little better than monsters. She went back to focusing on the next drink order.

Roanes agreed. “Isn’t it? Salli hasn’t even been with me two weeks yet. And, if you’re looking for innocence, she certainly still has it.”

“Can you get her for me now?”

Roanes saw an opportunity and the wiry man with the greedy soul wasn’t one to miss an opportunity. “She is new, and, of course, pretty popular, so you might have to...”

Gold coins from a pouch on her belt skittered across the bar and Roanes scrambled to gather three of them before they fell to the floor as though they were about to fall into a pool of molten lava. He swept them together in an indelicate pile and looked upon them as the small fortune they combined to be while the woman’s voice didn’t lose its cheer. “Can you get her for me now? Please?”

“Of course, of course.” He looked out toward the tables and found one of the barmaids who didn’t seem to be doing much at just that moment. “Oma, go find Salli right away. She has people that are dying to meet her.”

The thicker middle-aged woman hurried out and Mara kept her head down as she wiped dry two just washed mugs and set about completing the orders without looking at the women who had stopped talking while she wished Roanes would stop trying to sell the girl already sold and upsell by adding a few more to the party. It didn’t even stop him from trying when the brunette said in no uncertain terms, “Salli is the only one we’re interested in, thank you.”

The tray was almost ready when Oma hustled back to the tables with Salli in front of her. Mara noted that if someone was looking for innocent, Salli fit the description perfectly. Young to start with combined with flawless skin, wide green eyes and a thin frame less than five feet high to make her look a good sight younger than she actually was. Having spoken to her a few times, Mara knew the woman was both resigned and determined to be here.

As the eldest child, her family needed her to do whatever had to be done. Her father didn’t want her doing what she was and attempted to put his foot down, but that petite frame held her mother’s stubbornness and then some. Since mother’s stroke, what lived within her eldest was all there was to reach. For mother, moving at all was an ordeal, and speaking even more so. Working was now impossible for her, so the family needed money for her care on top of what the family needed anyway with her father actually having to work less in order to his wife, and it was needed quickly. Salli could think of no better way to get it. Roanes took a lot of it, more than anyone would consider fair, but even that left her with a fair sight more than cleaning houses or folding laundry.

Right now, that was enough reason to endure this place and the men. Mara felt badly for her situation and the fact that, sooner or later, that in a year, maybe two, that determination and spark within the girl would die. She would fuck, get her money, and fuck more, but that innocence that these monsters so coveted now would be a memory. She’d seen it happen too many times before to think that it wasn’t going to happen again.

Salli put on a bright smile as she approached Roanes and the women near the door. The blond took her place near the brunette while Roanes smiled and beckoned Salli over with an extended arm. “Here she is,” his voice particularly animated. “What did I tell you? Beautiful. Sweet. Worth every coin and more.”

The brunette was no longer looking at him, focusing herself on the young woman. “You are Salli Olstrum?”

She hesitated at the use of her full name. “I am.”

The blond spoke for the first time. “Daughter of Rex and Venra Olstrom?”

Now she puzzled and her brow tightened. “Yes. Who are you?”

The brunette answered her. “My name is Imir, and my companion is Devin. We are here because your father wants you to come home.”

She sighed. She loved him dearly, but now he was enlisting complete strangers to try to talking her out of what had to be done. “Look, I appreciate what you’re trying to do. I’m sure your heart’s in the right place and I know his is for trying to enlist your help in the first place, but I’m telling you what I told him: hard choices have to be made, and I’ve made them. If you understood what’s happening for me and mine right now you wouldn’t be here trying to ask me to leave.”

“Just a minute,” Roanes tried to interject, but was ignored. Mara was now looking on in rapt attention once again.

“We understand completely, but circumstances have changed,” Imir said. “With your first offering of money your father used it to fund the family while he took several days from work. He camped the front steps of the clinics until he found one that one of the queen’s healers who often volunteers in the southern quarter uses and begged for his aid.”

“That aid is going to be provided. I am told that, with some luck, your mother will make a complete recovery. That will take time, but in the meantime, she was quite adamant that you not be here.”

“She?” Those wide eyes widened further and her heart raced in her chest. “My mother spoke?” She hadn’t heard that voice in months and believed that she never would again.

“With great difficulty at this point, of course, but it was very important to her to get a message to you.” She glanced to the woman named Devin, who responded, “As I remember it, it was, ‘I don’t care if an ass has to drag my crippled body through the streets to a house where I scrub floors with one good arm, get my girl out of that whorehouse.’”

Salli dipped her head and smiled at the floor. That was her mother. The woman even did a remarkable job mimicking the tone. A flush of shame also worked its way through her. She had no desire to hurt her mother. She was only doing what she thought was best, like her mother would have done.

“Just a minute here.” Roanes’ voice was more forceful this time, but just as ineffectual in getting anyone’s attention.

“So, your parents do not want you to be here, and, unless there are reasons that you wish to remain that are beyond caring for your mother and the rest of your family, there’s no need for you to be here, as you won’t likely have further need to make so much money so quickly. If you do, other arrangements can be made that won’t require such extreme sacrifices on your part. The healer’s mate has asked us to escort you home.”

“If that’s your wish,” Imir added.

Salli looked to Roanes, then to the women who came for her who seemed unreadable, truly leaving the decision to her. She even looked to Mara who tried to will her with her thoughts. By the Goddess, get the hell out of here. Go home. Never come back. Get married, have babies, and forget you ever set foot in here.

She took a breath and made her choice, not that there was much to debate. “Sorry, Mr. Roanes. I quit.”

Any joviality that came with the pile of coin before him evaporated. He took strides from behind the bar, bumping into Mara on the way. His finger wagged in her face as though he was dressing down a child, putting himself as within her space as he could so he could tower over her while she stepped back in response. “Listen, little missy, you can’t just quit. I spent good money getting you out of the rags you came in here looking for a job wearing. Who is going to pay me back for that?”

“You’re free to keep the coin already given,” Imir offered. “Mistress offers it in the spirit of amity and to lessen your burden of being an employee short.”

Roanes, the salesman, disappeared to be replaced by Roanes the businessman whose business was profiting from the flesh of others when some of that flesh threatened to walk out the door without his permission. He turned to her, stepping up to the woman who did not shrink from him in the slightest. “Fuck that.” He pointed to it, swinging his arm close to her face to point to the coins and she didn’t even flinch.

“That? That’s great for a night, but I can make that off that bitch in a month. She’s young looking and small, so I can sell the illusion of her as virgin and the illusion of forbidden, and I can do that for years. So, if you are willing to offer ten times that, we have a really good starting point. Otherwise, the only people leaving here are you.”

Her response was flat, sounding like any business person that had reached the end of their particular bit of road. “The offer is final.”

“Then get out.”

“As you please.” Imir took one step back, not taking her eyes from him. Mara couldn’t help but see that the woman was wary, but she had no fear. She looked like the very idea of it was foreign to her. She extended her arm forward. “We’ll escort you home, Salli. If you have any belongings here, they’ll be collected tomorrow on your behalf.”

Time crawled for Mara as she watched what came next.

Roanes tried to push the Imir away, and almost faster than she could see, the woman grabbed his wrist and twisted it, bringing his forearm down and away. Salli jumped back at the suddenness and pitch of his cry as it happened, too stunned at the mayhem unfolding before her to do much else. Then Imir followed Roanes as his body bent to try to follow his arm and she stepped to the side before she hooked her forearm around his neck from behind, pulling him to her, bracing her other arm behind his head to lock his skull in a vise.

She knew her companion was in an altercation of her own, but she saw no need to intervene, as though she knew on some level what was happening, but saw no need to interfere, content to keep Roanes where he was.

Mara gasped seeing the glint of a knife in the hand of one of the regulars as he and a friend of his saw the opportunity to engage in some mayhem that they could later claim someone else started. Those two always liked to cause trouble whenever they could, but they were big spenders once they sold a season’s worth of pelts, so Roanes let a lot slide.

Devin seemed to see the knife behind her and moved at the last possible instant so that the blade found air instead of her kidney. Her arm coiled around his almost like a snake and her hand pushed downward while she brought her body upward and Mara thought she could hear the resulting crunch of bone and cartilage from where she was. She could certainly hear the scream that came from the action.

The knife fell and she plucked it from the air with her free hand before it hit the floor. Then, with a fluidity Mara was certain no one had ever witnessed, she watched as Devin dropped her body to just below his chest and pivoted it towards the bar slightly before bringing her body back and her elbow up to his nose with shattering force and a sudden spray of blood.

“My nose! You broke my nose, you fuckin’ bitch.” As he staggered back she spun as she rose with dancer’s grace, taking him by the back of the neck and slamming him to the table he came from with one arm.

As he tried to lift himself from his position while snorting blood, his friend attempted to copy Imir’s move, attempting to use brute force to strangle the life from Devin, taking them both a step back. With one hand and brute strength beyond his she pulled his arm away from her and spun him with her in a circle as she turned. Using his disorientation, she pushed him hard, sending him into the wall with such force that he bounced off of it before falling to the floor with the force and finesse of a felled tree.

As the knife-wielder tried to rise from the table to avenge himself, he was reintroduced to the blade by having it driven through both his hand and the table beneath in a single thrust. Pain shot through him and he screamed a scream of the damned. When he quieted a bit and clutched at the handle “The fight is over so long as you wish for it to be. If you continue, there will only be more pain.” He seemed only interested in the pain he was enduring now while she surveyed the room and found no one interested in taking up their defense. That being so, she relaxed her posture to the calm guarding stance she had when she came in.

Mara stared as though she had seen the righteous hand of the Goddess within them. It had literally been only a matter of seconds and they controlled the room and the threats within it. They had controlled destiny itself and they did so with a divine certainty and without fear. She had never seen anyone like them beyond story books that gave life to the wildest imaginings.

The woman in black didn’t show the slightest exertion with holding Roanes as she was while her voice was perfectly casual “Mr. Roanes, I am going to ask questions and you are going to answer them. We are going to practice now, do you understand?” She punctuated the question with a squeeze.

Roanes made a gurgling, gasping sound before he said anything intelligible. “Yes.”

“I’m certain Salli is grateful for the opportunity you have provided, but she’s made it clear that, due to changing circumstance, she wishes to quit and return home. Do you understand?”

He choked out, “Yes.”

“She is free to, isn’t she?”

He gasped two breaths, as that was the time it took to grudgingly come to terms with reality. “Yes.”

“Do you understand that if you accost her or her family, or allow anyone to do so on your behalf, we will return? Or perhaps even Mistress will?”

He had no idea who in the void that she was talking about, not that it mattered. It’d be enough shit just to see them walk through the door again. “Yes.”

“You know that if we return, the visit will be far more unpleasant for you than this one?”

“Yes.”

“Is this all over now?”

There wasn’t a pause. As much of a find that Salli was, she wasn’t worth this; no woman was. “Yes.”

Imir released him while he gagged and coughed in air with a hacking sound that reminded Mara of a dying man trying to gather enough air to last a bit longer. For the woman, it was over as quickly as it had begun, though she remained in a ready and commanding stance. “The gold is still yours in return for your inconvenience. Have a pleasant evening.” Imir extended her hand once again. “We’ll escort you home.”

Salli’s eyes darted around and shied away from Roanes’ quickly, deciding it was best to leave as quickly as possible. She looked to the bar and said “Bye.” quickly and quietly, as she had begun to make friends with those who worked behind it in the short time she’d been there.

“Bye, honey,” Mara said just as quietly as she watched the one named Devin take a place behind Salli and the three disappeared into the night. Mara just stared at the empty space as, with the excitement of the moment gone, the patrons were getting back to the business of the evening, whatever that was for each of them. She couldn’t get those women out of her mind. They’d come in to a place like this without fear. She’d seen them fight and knew why they didn’t have to have fear anyone in this place. By the Goddess, one of them could probably have taken on a dozen trained soldiers. She’d never seen anyone move like that or show strength that was nothing short of inhuman. She couldn’t imagine anything they ever needed to fear.

But it was so much more for Mara. It was in their eyes. They were alive in a way that she’d never seen. They were sure and certain of themselves and their purpose. They knew what they were doing was right and that what they were doing, they were doing for something greater than themselves. She knew they didn’t wake up every day to a cloying, soul-numbing, sameness. There was something in them that was above and almost beyond it all. It felt like…

“Get those fucking orders out. The show’s over.”

“Yes, Mr. Roanes,” came automatically. Even so, she found her eyes still drawn to the door as she did.

Mara meant to head home after her shift. The first light of dawn marked that time for her and she took her usual well-trodden route to her small apartment near the livery stable where she’d wind down a little, go to sleep, wake up, do some errands, and go back to work. At least there would be something to talk about for the foreseeable future at work because she didn’t know who else she could talk about the night’s events with that would believe it. It was probably the most exciting thing to have happened there up to that point and maybe the most exciting thing that would.

Turning down the street towards the livery, now only a block or so from home, her eye suddenly caught sight of a blond in an outfit the color of wine, just before seeing the woman in black as they checked their horses before heading out. In that moment, she saw something else that she had seen so many times before that she couldn’t remember the number even if she tried, but it seemed more powerful somehow. She saw them caressing their horses with affection. She was too far away to hear the whispers, but she could tell that that’s what they were from the way the horses leaned in to listen.

She knew from life experience that you could well judge a person by how they were with animals and how animals reacted to them. There was a gentleness to them. There was a humanity under the calm, cool warriors with that iron will and certainty of purpose. It just made them both seem that much more beyond mortals and something approaching the divine. They talked and they seemed to listen for the longest time before they broke the spell they’d woven on the horses. They mounted them smoothly and set out on the road with the rising sun behind them.

She crossed the street as they went ahead of her, planning then only to watch them go; to watch them disappear to wherever creatures beyond the world like they were would go. As the distance between them expanded and they grew smaller in her view, she found she couldn’t let them go. Ideas that she had always held and dreams that she had always had were personified before her in the distance. Her heart fluttered in anxiety and she found herself searching the livery for stable hands. Hearing one singing to himself on the other side of the building, she saw a fine mare not hers, minding her own business in her stall. The horse continued to not make much fuss even as Mara guided them both onto the road.

What are you doing, Mara? What the fuck are you doing? That small voice in her head that asked a perfectly valid question was completely ignored as something she couldn’t find words for drove her onward, carefully gauging her distance from them, trying hard not to be seen. Knowing nothing about following someone unseen, she hoped that the sun at her back helped somehow.

Keeping them as far ahead of as she dared without losing sight of them, she followed them from the main road out of town. She followed them as that main road became a smaller road, then as that main road became a beaten path. She heard the voice asking her if she was crazy again as that beaten path became seemingly just meandering though the woods, well beyond the city, and well beyond the trodden paths. She was thankful for her heavy dress against the cold and, she noted, without surprise, that they seemed untroubled by it.

In this place, the trees were so close in spots that they had to slow to weave through them and Mara looked up to see to see the gnarled limbs of the trees that sometimes seemed to be battling one another and imagined them as a web that had ensnared them all. She was certain that, at any moment one of them was going to turn around and she’d be discovered, but they continued to be unaware of her presence. She remembered the one called Devin with the blade; how she knew where it was without even seeing it. Why would they look back? Why would they care? Even if they knew someone was following them, what do they have to fear?

Nothing.

That fact was part of what kept her going, hoping that the sound of hooves cracking the underbrush in even the smallest of ways wasn’t too much. A few minutes through the maze of trees and they stopped just before a small clearing of short grass before another stretch of trees. Mara stopped when they did, watching and waiting, wondering why they chose this place as the end of their journey. Whatever reason that she might have imagined, she did not imagine what she saw.

Imir raised her arm that wore the bracelet at an upward angle toward the sky, palm out. Mara blinked several times, not quite believing what she saw. What she initially believed was a breeze having its way with the trees, she realized was more when the very air seemed to ripple like the waves of the ocean with Imir’s hand at the center. The waves smoothed and it took another moment to realize that the treeline looking differently ahead of them was actually the treeline looking differently and not simply a play of light and shadow mixed with the fact that she’d been working all night and hadn’t gone to bed yet.

The light and shadow ahead had changed as well. There was another beaten path that appeared before them and wound off into the distance. Mara finally accepted what her senses were telling her. Ahead of her, ahead of them, was someplace else. It was someplace else far enough ahead of them to literally be somewhere else.

Mara looked on in wonder. Magic. It was so unbelievable and yet it made so much sense. Magic was all but forbidden in the known world after fear of all it could do drove the majority of its practitioners into exile or to their deaths at the hands of those who feared them. Some magic was still allowed, mainly because, as fearful of it as many might be, they weren’t so fearful of it that they would abandon something that could make them well when potions and the other stuff of science would fail.

That wasn’t this. They’re mages. True mages. That explained their skill, power, and fearlessness. That explained why they could walk into a place they’d never been as though they owned it, and when challenged, prove that they did indeed own it. The fountain of awe within her that they fed only grew as she watched them move from here to there with no more difficulty than what was was involved in getting here to begin with.

Turn back, Mara. You saw them. Wherever they’re going isn’t a place meant for you, it’s meant for them. Every bit of sense she had was screaming in her ear to go back, return the horse she stole, make up a less crazy reason why she took it than, ‘I felt the need to follow two forbidden mages out of town,’ go home, and go to bed. Even her horse seemed to balk at the idea of being that close to whatever it was despite the fact they weren’t that close. She knew it wouldn’t stay. It couldn’t. Even if she didn’t have the courage to turn around and go, the decision would be made for her. She wasn’t sure in that moment why she didn’t have the courage to go home, but she did have the courage to follow two mages to Goddess knew where.

Fully accepting that the skittish horse beneath her probably had more common sense than she did at the moment, she urged her forward down the path, into the clearing, and through whatever the mages had created. She moved through whatever it was with no sensation of feeling, but she was definitely elsewhere. She believed she wasn’t on the other side of the word or something because the area didn’t look too different from home, but she was definitely well away from her home and her bed.

They were ahead of her, seemingly oblivious to her as she felt the air shift behind her. Looking back, the door behind her was gone as though it had never been. Now she really was committed to this path in more ways than one. For about ten minutes she followed those forms in the distance into the deepening woods until they stopped for reasons that weren’t apparent. Maybe now that they had her exactly where they wanted her, in the middle of what was, for her, nowhere, was when they turn on her to at least ask her who she was and what she was doing. She scolded herself for not using all this time to at least try to come up with a semi-plausible excuse to be here to begin with.

Someone emerged from their left from the maze of trees, from where Mara couldn’t see. She blinked and the other was there. It occurred to her that that may have actually been the case. Why couldn’t they just appear like they did? The thin frame was cloaked against the cold and the dark fabric that surrounded this person hung just above the ground to to give this person the appearance of floating above it.

The women dismounted and Mara did the same, trying to move towards them as much as she dared, using the trees as cover as she inched forward, trying to see what she could see and what she could hear. She measured each movement, looking where she would place her feet so as to make the least noise with every step. Mara heard nothing, but what she saw captivated her almost as completely as the scene in the bar.

She could tell the cloaked one was speaking and running fingers through Imir’s hair, who seemed to relax instantly. Her stance had softened visibly with her shoulders seeming to sag and her head sinking into the hand that caressed her. It looked gentle, kind, and loving. It looked like sex, surrender, and power. All of those ideas vied for a place in her mind to the point that she thought she’d jump from her skin when a voice came from all around her and seemingly nowhere all at once.

“Hello, young lady.”

When her heart stopped its rampage and settled back into something closer to a natural rhythm, she took her hand from its place over it before reflexively looking around for the source of the crisp, feminine voice before realizing she’d probably been staring at it the whole time.

The voice was a sincere one. “Apologies. I didn’t mean to frighten you. It’s just somewhat awkward, and in my case, unnecessary, to yell across the woods. You’ve come all this way, so you may as well make the rest of the trip.”

Her first few steps were cautious before she scolded herself for deciding now that being cautious might mean not going forward. The next ones were a bit more sure as she approached the trio, though she was more nervous now with the fact that she couldn’t pretend or hope that no one knew of her presence. As she did, the hand stopped caressing Imir and, almost instantly, her stance found its power once again as she stepped to the cloaked one’s right and behind her, while Devin took her place on the left.

The one turned to her and Mara could see that it was a female before she drew back her hood and Mara could see that she was a lovely one. Her blond hair cascaded in soft waves down her shoulders framed sculpted features and blue eyes that seemed to see everything everywhere. “I assume this is the one?”

“Yes, Mistress,” Imir said. “This is the one who followed us on our departure. She works at the brothel and witnessed our extracting Salli Olstrum from her employment.”

Mara couldn’t help but be surprised that she was remembered.

“Good,” the other said. “I’d hate to think that we were just randomly attracting hangers on.” She appraised the young woman while still maintaining a pleasant demeanor. “And who are you, young lady?”

“Mara. Mara Navins.” She started to offer her hand, but then, with what she suspected, she wasn’t sure it was the best idea, so she put it back to to her side.

The woman seemed to be unbothered by the withdrawn gesture and dipped her head slightly. “Hello, Mara Navins. I am Bryana Lia. What, may I ask, brings you all this way?”

“Last night,” she began, struggling to find a place to begin and the words to go with it. “Last night...I saw… Are you mages?”

Bryana saw no reason to lie, but also saw no reason not to toy with the girl a bit. She came all this way and it seemed a shame to send her away without a word. “I’m a healer, yes.”

She frowned. “That’s not what I meant.”

“I know what you meant. I am a healer, but you’re here, aren’t you? Do you really need me to answer that question for you?”

She found herself stymied for a moment because she supposed that she didn’t. There were stories because there were always fantastical stories. People would come in and talk about needing a mage or having dealt with one and she could, and usually did, dismiss it because who would risk death to be one, or even hire one? That and they were usually well on their way to, or firmly ensconced in, drunk by the time they started talking about it. It was scarcely believable even though it was before her. “So you are mages.”

“Walk with me, Mara.” Bryana gestured them deeper into the woods, which concerned her until she reminded herself again that she was already exactly where they would want her if they were of a mind to do anything, and what could she do if they wanted to do it. Bryana’s eyes seemed to look through her and watch her mind work. In the end, they started a leisurely walk down a seemingly random path. “To clarify the issue for you; I’m a mage while Imir and Devin are not. ”

That information clarified nothing. “But...wait, I saw them use magic to get here. And last night I saw Devin do things...that no normal person could do.”

Bryana was proud of herself for them and them for their ability to embrace and excel with their gifts. “Their bodies are as I have made them. In many ways, they are the body perfected. And, yes, they have the use of magics that I allow them to have the use of.”

With a gesture from her, Devin shifted position so that Mara could look upon the bracelet that fit firmly against the flesh of her wrist. The carving was intricate and looked layered somehow, as though there were etchings under etchings under etchings in ways that she had never seen a metalsmith accomplish. “What you saw are merely extensions of my own power.”

A well of excitement burst forth. It was what she hoped and, somehow more. “Can you teach me to be like them? Can you teach me to do what they do?”

Bryana laughed. It was a soft sound and conveyed amusement and tolerance. “No, my dear. Even if I were inclined, there is nothing to ‘teach.’ I selected them and changed them as it suited me.”

She looked at both of them and could easily see why they were selected, though she asked anyway. “What made you pick them?”

“They each came to me from my own paths and they needed to be mine.”

Her tone was a plaintive one, “Here I am, from my own path and everything.”

Bryana looked ahead. “It’s not the same, young lady.” After a pause, “Since there’s nothing more to discuss, we’ll get you and your horse home.”

Her cheeks burned. “She not mine.”

Bryana looked at her, giving her a raised brow and a hint of a smile. “Well, then, we’ll get you home so you can get the horse back to its owner and see if you can convince him or her not to have you arrested for thievery.”

“Please.” The former pained her far more than the latter and she blurted out her next words before rationality could keep them in her brain. “If you don’t help me I’ll turn you in.”

She didn’t expect Bryana to laugh and found herself wallowing in a mix of anger, surprise and embarrassment when she did. “Turn me in for what?”

Honestly, she wasn’t completely sure so she latched on to the two most obvious things in her mine. “Being a mage; doing things to them.”

“Prove I am a mage, Mara. This world is rife with paranoia, but it is still not so insane that you can randomly point to a healer, scream ‘mage,’ then watch them be put down. As to my two, do you honestly think they will corroborate your cries? Do you think they will confess to all the ways they were changed at my hand?”

She sounded as though she was more amused than anything. “The answer to that is as obvious is as it is meaningless. There will be nothing for you to tell them because you will remember none of this to begin with.” Bryana turned from a step ahead of her, to see that the woman stopped, frozen, looking as though she was facing death itself.

Bryana’s tone was gentle and she put a hand on her shoulder to attempt to comfort. “There will be no pain at all and no lasting effects. This simply will not have happened as far as you’re concerned.”

She took a step back, directly into the immovable wall of flesh behind her. “Don’t. Please. Don’t send me back there.”

Bryana paused, knowing what she knew of the place and the events of the night before. “Do they harm you there?”

Mara shook her head, “No, no one does anything to me there. Not there. Don’t...send me back there. Don’t send me back to that nothing place and that nothing life. I go to sleep, wake up, fill a few hours before I have to go to that bar and spend the night serving watered down ale to pigs before I have to clean their vomit and their seed up off the floor only to do it again tomorrow.”

“When those two came in,” she began, the sense of wonder creeping back into her voice and the feeling made her skin tingle as though she were being carried up with the crescendo of her favorite musical piece, “and did what they did, it was like blinking and then suddenly seeing that there were heroes from story books actually alive in the world. There are people that can help. There are people that can be decent. There are people that don’t live in fear of the world and try to make it better.”

Bryana, with some effort, didn’t laugh again, mainly because she saw the sincerity of belief and the well of hope in her eyes. Some humor escaped, but it was more the self-deprecating variety. “All that they do is on me, and I am no hero. Sometimes I do as I’m contracted as a mage. Sometimes I simply try to do what’s right more often than not and, sometimes, that means I do very bad things. It is for the greater good as I see it, and I hope that it works out that way in the end, but, rest assured girl, that I am not some paragon of virtue.”

“If you want accolades and the pride of standing for what is true and right, join General Jaye’s army.” Her voice was pure tenderness for a moment. “She’s the hero. She is every bit the hero I’m not.” Then a smile, “Work to be her, young lady.”

“It took courage for you to follow. It took courage for you to step into something unknown just to see what was there. That deserves some note. While I will still take this from you because it’s better for you that I do, I will leave you with some coin; enough to start someplace new if that’s your wish. You can try to be someone new.”

Everything was escaping her. Chance. Hope. Everything. It was slipping through her fingers and she had no idea how to make it stop so she stood her ground. “That’s it? Just some money and I never remember this? That won’t solve anything. No matter how much money you give me or where I go it won’t change anything because I’m the problem, all right?”

“I’m the problem.” Saying it was a bittersweet relief. It was a source of shame to be sure, but there was a freedom in admitting it and that freedom was exhilarating, and it drove her forward. “I watched my parents work hard for little and, you know what? They were almost happy for that. They were happy to be where they were because why take an opportunity and have it fall apart, then lose what little there was? I suppose I understand when you have children you have to take care of.”

“But they’re still happy to be nothing.” She laughed mirthlessly. “And my siblings? They wallow in their little shit jobs with just enough to get by. You hear them talk and they want for nothing, but you dig deeper and that contentment is just fear of being worse off tomorrow than today.”

“I’m my parents’ child, too. I learned all the lessons that I was taught, except for one: how to be content with nothing. I hate that place. I hate Roanes and the drunken pigs. I hate the stench of cheap alcohol and the pigs who drink so much of it they end up vomiting and shitting all themselves and the floor for me and the others to clean up. I hate watching the women that fuck those ‘men’ die a little each night.”

Her voice broke and her eyes took on a bit of extra sparkle with the tears that fought their way forward. “The light in their eyes dims just a little bit with each dawn. I know because I see it every day in my own.”

“But I can’t leave. That shit job in that shit place gives me enough to lived there’s always that voice that cannot be ignored that wonders what will happen if I lose it. Money to start elsewhere? And do what, Bryana? I have no skills. I can read pretty well and do some math, and that’s about it. Add that to the fact that, while I’m not a monster, even I know I have no beauty to trade on. That means I’d pinch those coins until they begged for mercy, but, in the end, I would just end up in a nothing job with no future. Then I grow old and die, and I was nothing.”

“Last night, I saw women that were so much more. Not only were they something, they were something beyond everything else. I want to be that.

“Regardless of the price? You have no idea what you’re wishing for, girl.”

“I’ll work for you, as long as you want. I’ll do what you say.”

There was that laugh again that Mara was beginning to dislike because, again, it seemed to be coming at her expense. “That simple is it, Mara? I change your body and give you power and then I just trust that you will not abuse it. Or that you will not turn it against me?”

Mara answered quickly, “I wouldn’t, I swear.”

Bryana stepped to her so they were to to toe, with Mara a good head shorter than she and then some. “Let’s say your word is good, Mara, though when hypothetical exercises become reality a person’s word tends to be forgotten in favor of that power. You would do as I say, would you?”

“I swear.”

“Would you kill someone?” Her head tilted to the right and she watched the hesitation at play in the other’s features. “It’s not something that I often set them to directly, but it has happened and it will again. If I pointed to a person and told you that they had to die, could you simply, instantly kill them without remorse or shame?”

“Let me demonstrate.” She gave a quick glance upward, “Your metal to her throat, please.”

With the same ferocity, speed, and power that Mara witnessed from Devin last night, she felt a hand claw around her throat before her world spun in what looked and felt like every direction at once before the ground slammed into her back, pushing the air from her lungs in a rush that made her cough to try to pull more in, and it came, but not easily. She felt the small piece of metal in her hand dig into the soft skin of her neck, pressing firmly enough that she could feel her heartbeat against it.

And when Mara looked up, she saw indifference in those brown eyes. There was no love, hate, or insanity. She was told to do something and she did it. She did it and simply awaited the next order, and, if it didn’t come, Mara somehow knew that Imir would be content to keep her there just that way forever just because that’s what Imir was told to do. To Mara, that was part of their power, too.

“Do you understand now, girl? Do you see in her that if I tell her that you are to die, you will and she will simply walk away from your body without a second thought and she will do it because I decided that you were to die. She doesn’t care. If I asked her to express a view, she may ask if I am making the best choice, but even that is to defend me in it’s own way.”

“They have the power I give them, and the will I want them to have because statues that all but have to be told to breathe are not things I have the time or desire to manage. But, if I tell Imir to kill you, here is where you die. Because I decided what was right and what had to happen for her.”

Bryana let the words hang in the air in, what was for Mara, an ominous moment. “Release her.”

Just like that, the pressure left her throat and her hips as Imir lifted smoothly from her and replaced the bit of metal within the pouch at her hip. Bryana offered her hand and it hovered in the air before Mara took it firmly and righted herself.

Bryana looked at the ebbing fear and continuing fierceness in Mara’s eyes seemed to have come to a decision and was relieved to have done so. She once told Neral, one of her mates, that there were people who wanted to be controlled. There was a peace and liberation that came with giving your concerns, and even your ability to be concerned to another. Deres, their other, was fond of giving choices wherever he could. Combined, those ideas would serve well enough. And, truthfully, there was sympathy for Mara and her life. It took courage for her to make it this far, maybe more than she’d ever displayed in her life. She decided that earned the girl a choice of her own.

“They will never betray me because they can’t, Mara. Much of their will is gone and replaced with mine. They will never be free to be what they were again. Even the desire to be that is gone because it doesn’t serve me.”

“I care for them and want the best for them, but what the best for them is will always be mine to determine. You want to be something else? You want to be what you think is ‘more’ and ‘better?’ Well, I’m telling you here and now that the cost for that is nothing less than who you are, and who you will be for every day of your life. You will kill if I say to do it because I say with as much concern behind your own eyes as Imir’s a moment ago. You will love as I say because I say. Every part of your body, mind, and heart will be mine to shape. Forever.”

She offered her hand. “Tell me you wish to go home and this will be taken from you. You will awaken at home with some coin, and even without the fear and dread that keeps you where you are. You can go on and have a life that is for you to determine, and, even if you do not remember that I did, I will wish you well.”

“If you take my hand, you do so knowing that I will kill you, Mara. I will kill all the parts of you that do not benefit me for you to keep. I will kill those parts of your mind and I will reshape your body to my whim. So, go home, Mara,” Bryana said, Mara believing she could hear extra emphasis in that, “or make the last choice you will ever fully make on your own and give me your life.”

Mara looked into Bryana’s eyes and they were unreadable, refusing to influence that final choice either way. But they did, in a way, by not doing so at all. There was power behind those eyes. There was certainty. There was an absence of the fear that Mara had known since she was old enough to know how little they had and how hard her family worked to keep it. What was there were already things that Mara had never known at all, or only known for a fleeting moments before her family’s inherited ability to ‘what if’ themselves into paralysis set in.

She could just go home. She knew she probably should just go home. Bryana would change her enough; she promised as much. Mara would have a little money and the will to take a chance with it. She’d be better off in that alone in ways she hadn’t dreamed possible before last night. Perhaps that’s all she truly needed.

Her eyes found Imir and Devin again, the two standing tall and proud. They were examples of what awaited her: strong, determined beings gifted with whatever Bryana chose for them to have. They looked like they could do anything and be anything, and all they needed was her permission to do it. Bryana could warn her away, and she would probably not be nearly as awed as Mara was at seeing what the barmaid had because that’s just what she made them to do, but the promise of it spoke to something deeper within Mara that she couldn’t truly articulate in the moment.

If she went home with a little money and a little courage, she would never be them. She could never be them. She would go back to living a less fearful, but just as uneventful a life. A husband. Children. A home. Cooking. Cleaning. Growing old. It was still, for Mara, a meaningless, rote life that her parents had and siblings had, and most of the world had, but one that was almost as unbearable to her as what she’d come from. Living through the sameness of it all and contemplating decades more of the same was strangling her spirit just as surely as letting those drunken pigs bounce on her day after day, year after year, would have destroyed Salli’s. It would always be the same, even if she had the money and the artificial courage to change the fringes.

To be them may not mean being a hero, but she saw Bryana send those women in to rescue a young woman from a life of bondage that would have drained that life of anything worthwhile. Salli would never forget what was given to her that night by all the women with her in the woods this day. Those women with her in these woods may never be heroes or win accolades, but they made a difference. If she could make difference like that, even sometimes, what would truly be lost if someone else chose for her what it would be and how it would be done?

If she could be them and make a difference in ways that Mara never could and have a life that Mara could never have, what difference would it truly make to the world if she were dead? She met the blue eyes before her, straightened her spine, and took Bryana’s hand, adding two simple words:

“I choose.”

Her body jerked as a current coursed through her, and then her world went black.