Welcome to Gaia! ::

As he ate, Scarlet traced the patterns of the lines with her fingertips. She wasn't adept at the magical arts--that was really her brother's forte--but her father had insisted she learn enough to be at least basically literate. The tribal lines were sharp, the symbols intertwined together very dark. She could tell it would inflict a lot of pain. She saw the crude command to activate it's control over him, and found quite a few loop holes--which he probably exploited as much as possible. She knew, for example, if she ordered him to fetch her chocolate, he could bring her an individual piece of chocolate, leaving the rest of the box behind while fulfilling the letter of the command. She decided that she would ask Devonte, her brother, if there was any need to change the parameters of the mark.

Satisfied with her examinations, she let him eat and sat down in her large arm chair. With a small wave of her hand, she dismissed the servants. They left the table and food, and gracefully bowed out of her chambers. They'd return later to clean up. For the moment, she just watched him enjoy his first decent meal in who-knows-how-long.

Scarlet arched an eyebrow. "Trying to bargain with your owner before even thanking her for a meal?" she observed, her voice colored with censure. "Pretentious. Insolent, even. I wonder tho, if I could simply command you to divulge your secrets...but you might hurt yourself trying to resist--or worse, there might be a fail-safe that prevents you from revealing too much to an ignorant master, and it could seriously harm you. I have no desire for another wolf-skin rug, so you may keep your secrets...for now. I'm much more interested in you and what you want to do while you are in my possession. I can't abide useless people, so we will definitely have to come up with something to keep you busy. I could tell you my preferences or just exploit your binding, which could be fun. But I think I'd like to hear what you want first."

Scarlet's smile took a predatorial edge. "Oh, so you like being that sort of slave. Then I most certainly want to know all of those secrets, precious," she cooed as she slowly stood. She approached him with a new and hungry light in her garnet eyes. When she was close enough, she hooked two of her fingers in the glittering chain around his neck and drew his face close to hers. "Tell me everything."

"Lets start with your favorite part. Begging, I believe it was?" she purred, her fingers never releasing his chain. "Tell me how I can get you to beg."

"Do go on," Scarlet purred, tracing the edges of the seal with the tip of her fingernail. "Where is you expertize? What have you done? What more can I command of you?"

Scarlet carressed the seal once more with her open palm. "And are these commands exclusively mine to utter? What if someone steals you from me? Will they have any power over you to keep you or will you come back to me?"

Scarlet stopped touching him abruptly and moved away.

"You poor child," she whispered. "I should tear out the throat of the hag that did this to you. It's one thing to assume absolute responsibility for and over another--but to do this...to corrupt your innocence like this...to strip you of basic decency and self control...even I would never do this to my enemies, and I'm the unholy undead. I'm going to talk with my brother tomorrow night to see if there's a way we can break the binding. You should go to your room. You have your own suite adjacent to mine--through the secret panel over there; I'm sure you can sniff out the slight draft. You should take a cold shower and go to bed. Tomorrow, I'll find a way to end your suffering. I swear it to you."