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The dead of night, with inconceivable implacable thoughts that dread to drown out any sense of self-worth - wandering through the stark of dark, meaningless to the point of compromise and misnomer. That what she feels, be it inexplicability, trepidation or desolation, such over the course rigid lines of her heart, tethered open by who she calls a monster, tasted and abused and bled, alone. Palm over chest, sighing into the crevice of rope bound to walls and plack along thread, liquid seeping between claws, staining the carpeting blue.
Blinks with draught, oversharing to the vacant world, yet room full with a breathing mammalian beside herself - warm and pulsing, claws cupped into a pool of Nula’s own blood, thereof she allowed to be taken. Their face remains unbothered, even with heavy breaths looming over the curve of its structure - dead to everyone but themselves. How must it be to share a thought so worry-free - perplexity but a hobby for contemplation, for the sake of it all? But then again, she doesn't have the privilege to think of stuff such as this, even during hours she were to be considered free.
Looming trembles into a shiver, which then shakes into misdemeanor. The soul of her semi-mortal state aches to let free - roam through worlds far better than this reality, creativity a prison for her mind, as such she could be punished for getting found out. Since all of this is considered unnatural - against law and order that nature considered for us, and the utopia that we call our living. But is it really natural if Paupers such as Nula exist? If they worry around and protest and have to be killed to be silenced? Aren't they oppressed in such a way, even the rich and almighty to a hefty extent?
The realm of the asleep is something Nula does not mind dabbling in, yet her eyes never close, and such it is hard to achieve such a vulnerable and complicit state. The body next to her has no such problems, with sclera's all over its figure, all tediously closed and unblinking in its own dream, dead to the world, but not themselves. As this is an escape of sorts - to the fact they were pried from their home, pushed into a tiny glass box and sequentially electrocuted with frequences heavy enough to kill the average Pauper. But they survived in spite of it, monster of creatures, and have to live with the homesickness for as long as they're allowed life.
Porcelain skin, a lilac that glows beneath artificial reflective light from outside window panes, pale blue hues meant to reflect that of asteroids and moons, showcasing the night, even if the planets and galaxies are to be seen just outside her doorway, looming. But it's disguised, portal of hell waiting ever so patiently for some new victim to trap in the government's home - preferably one that is capable of procreating healthy young, and for them to then be inseminated by force if it must. Hence the various hallways connected buildings all around - the sight of the stars not worth loss of self.
Even still, the dormant creature always insists to head out to watch the stars, almost as if they have never seen them before and seek to savour them as if it were the last time. But both of them know that there won't ever be a last - not until they eternally rid of all 217 of their eyes and do not seek after them. Everchanging, they will always find a way to gaze upon them, even if it means tearing through steel and bone to get there, as selfish and relentless as they are. Why circular gasses in vast space? That's all she wants to ask, squinted eyes and clinking mandibles, ticking a reminder for the nth time, knowing she won't keep herself to it.
Thereover, such a thought resembles that of free-will - of such she shan't have, albeit written in her RNA code. Discovering remains treacherous, and her hands stay twitching by her side, hovering over the blanket. They long for touch - usually so exempt from the mere idea of it, always jerking away and struggling out of someone's hold. Claustrophobia might be the word for the anxiety that encapsulates her when cornered, even if she has planned out a discrete exit way long before her nerves could set aflame. It's to keep herself from hurt and sorrow - blaze and rain.
Hand twitching over the plush of duvet, tendons stretching and pulling for lack of a better term - release. Fidgeting, her tail moves through the various arches and knots in the netted bed, slithering into a curl, just lightly brushing against the hairs on Hiljada's legs. She fears that they might feel it, but all her intense staring at the unbothered figure does is make herself a fool infront of imaginatory judges in the deep shadows. Good, she breathes out through indefinitely clenched teeth, nose but a blocked airway in the whole of her disablement.
Despite confidence trepidating through every shock she gives Hiljada in its containment, dripping with malice, the squeeze over the lever being the same along the resemblance of a heart - that of which is artificially crafted, such as all things in this world, and it creates a vacuum devoid of thought and feel. Weak is what emotions are, and she can't allow herself to become it. Not when her mother has spent years instilling the same lecture of overpushed boundaries and hollows to be filled, even by force - even if that's the whole reason Nula was conceived.
Yet, isn't fear a push to strive for better? Change is unnatural, Nula hums to herself, that is known to the whole of Paupers - or else their build would not be engraved into various codes of amino acids and mitochondrial burns, forever destined to endlessly restore itself with enough glucose in system. Because change is inevitable for species inferior to themselves, as there is no ‘Best’ version of them, and they can never become it. Glorious evolution is what they call it, sticks and stones writing on barren ground. They barely know their own functions and the Paupers exist to overcome them. Which is why religion is nothing but a hoax.
Rouse in her mind, jolting from unintelligible undefinable thoughts, masses of strings sticking and knotting in each other, meant to represent a self. A hivemind they are, yet her hand reaches out infront of her, unthinking, unwanting, pressing against a skin foreign to her own. She has felt their flesh beneath her claws before - although unwarranted and forced, heat of the moment and unfocused, never initiated by herself and only on the terms of the other. Now … her finger tip brushes over the slope of Hiljada's hollowed cheek, taking it within her palm fully, thumb caressing beneath the two eyes she spends the most time staring at.
A hitch in her breath, Hiljada's before unbothered body now scrunching its face, teeth poking from their bottom lip and countless lashes fluttering against the planes of their skin. Although, she doesn't pull back, as much as her mind yells and screams at her to, twitching over the sharp of her cheekbone, palm pushing further and nails scratching over the side of her flat temple. Is it really that affectionate, if what she does now is nothing near normal occurrence? Perhaps a lag in judgement, which causes some mental defects besides her physical ones.
Cowardice describes Nula greatly as Hiljada moves against the center of her palm, face turning, nuzzling into the crook between her forefinger and thumb, a web of intricate veins and nerves that would dearly hurt if bitten into, but Nula isn't afraid of breaking. What Nula has done however is a great act of bravery, even if it was just a touch of knuckles against a lifeless body - it's much more than Paupers as a whole would ever accomplish, be it someone as socially exempt as Nula. She doesn't get it, safe to say, as two of Hiljada's pale yellow sclera's, who always seem to be giving off light, open up in the middle of her profile, starkly.
They blink slowly and hazily, lips pushing against each other with a drowsiness akin to an awoken cat, horn brushing against the side of Nula’s wrist as she tightens her hold around the side of her countenance. Claws drape along curled fingers, one not of Nula’s own, resting over stressed, blued knuckles and unkept scratched nails. They hold her hand close to the warmth she stretched out for, eyes finally focusing up on Nula, albeit lazily and dozy, in a world of one's own. Which might as well be true, as the glint in their gaze is reminiscent of fantastical dreamery, lost from the sick reality of blood and spill, gore and loss - only holding onto nostalgic views of memories once lived or created by the mind, possessing the same emotional values nontheless.
A small, dainty smile presents itself on chapped, unfriendly lips, unknowing of how its form was made to be - ever consuming and destroying, selfish and unyielding for it destroys creatures for personal gain, mass turned into nothingness within seconds. It's full, enfolding, unnerving - yet she swipes her thumb along their cupid's bow. Hiljada stirs, hand gripping tighter around Nula’s wrist, blinking down against the touch of her, nestling further. Inhaling the scent of skin and sweat, mouth full with the stench of carbohydrates and plasticity, invading and prodding, yet they look content, evermore.
“You awoke me,” the hum of their deep voice bristles against the drums of Nula’s ears, a forgotten, unmemorable melody, synthetic yet authentic, for the way it arouses bloom in her chest. Chuckling lightly, crevices of the edges of her lips quirking up to form a deepened line along her jaw. Nula’s hand twitches, momentarily, if not for the utter grip Hiljada has around her claw, she would have let go and scattered into a mess of herself. They stare, unrelentingly, into the depths of what she calls her sense of self, to unravel beyond layers of skin and flesh, bone but a mere calcium barrier for teeth. Nula hitches her breath.
Why such a visceral vulnerability that shows itself in the form of a sweaty palm and shaking claws - wanting so desperately to yield yet stay, unintelligible to its user? Because she must admit, the body she now owns is nothing but a mystery box that books she has read and messages she has sent can't explain to her mortal existence - for mortality is a question on its own. Why a heart when she shan't use it in the grand scheme of things? Why to feel when the majority don't want her to? Why live when she herself doesn't want to spend another second breathing through her thick throat?
Their claws, striking and thick, shorter than hers, intertwine with her fingers, pulling them gently away from their face, only to press the curve of their lips against the hollow of the palm. A small sound makes itself known - a kiss, teeth rough yet silk against ivory skin, not hooking on the lines and burrows of it. Softness so overwhelming that she has to swallow down the breath in her throat yet again, tongue clicking against the bottom of her palette, holding herself anxiously and vigorously still. Even through it all, she still feels and thinks - she isn’t a machine to work till death and breakage, and she has the privilege to write this down. Not in millions of codes and megabytes of technicalities, but in her mind, even if not as vast as a computer.
Plead to be ordinary, when dusk settles in ironic ways, roads paved to insecurity and governmental death, written in man-made fate and Godless worlds. Words speak to let actions trail behind, cut off limbs and ripped out chords to suffice for the lack in mortality - ever flawed, never meliorated. Yet her hand crawls alongside their jaw, dipping with heavy fingers between lips that part, forcing onto a succulent tongue, slipping out, trailing the vein up to her nail. Teasingly, they keep their stare on Nula, claws squeezing around blued knuckles, warmth blooming like an endless source of heat - like the star they so desire to admire.
But Nula is no star, and she falters, hand twitching away from the wet tongue, slipping her claw from the one she was deeply and spiritually intertwined with, shaking her shoulders and shuffling back. Because she's afraid, long before she ever met Hiljada in the first place - it's a trait that was borne to her, to run away, leave everything behind so as to not get hurt. It's selfish, of course, but so is everyone, and otherwise she would drown in depths of wolves, gnawing at her flesh and bones, savouring the humanity that lingers in a millionth of an acre in the nerves of her system, buried for no one to find - yet slowly unravelling at the touch of another.
Hiljada does not allow it.
Their claw drapes over Nula’s face now, a switch from their previous position, causing a short circuit in her usually sharp mind, to press chapped lips against that of her mask's, unsavoury and rough, not like that of skin. Fingers curl around the edge of it, tracing the titanic porcelain, made from calcium of her artificially removed bones, kisses following shortly - the base, the ridge of the nose, the part closest to her eyes. Overwhelmingly sickening and she feels herself start to pull back again - but the hold on her head is too firm to free from, and blood rushes to her contours, painting her vivid.
Her shoulders, everso shaking, get pushed down against the plush of twine, tail twitching up from the position, awkwardly straining around Hiljada's flexed calf. Sickness and famine, hunger to reach with tongue beneath shield, like a dagger searching to stab her innermost weak-point - be it the face she bears underneath the mask. Claws lower to the plush of her neck, thick with fur and moist, knotted to a degree unable to be brushed - yet it is her pride and joy, the only sense of gender she has in the androgyny of her body. It barely reaches past her neck, and she wishes it be longer, but how it covers her from the world is enough of a pleasure on its own.
Twine and terror, utterly immobilised between surprisingly strong arms, muscles flexing under thick skin, scarred and wounded, yet never healed enough for it to disappear entirely, unlike the case with Nula. Their eyes - Gods, their eyes - stare down at them, thighs squeezed around the width of her tail, squirming beneath feet struggling to grip on. Relentlessy, they gaze at their face - but not the skin that lies open to the world, bared and naked, yet their look is on the features hidden behind that treacherous mask. Squinting, a crease between the brow ridge, observing her own sight now, a question lying inside of them that gently tilt her head to the side, smile not present for once.
With a lump in her throat, Nula nods.
Gently, their fingers caress up from the knots they were busy unravelling in her mane, smoothing over her jaw, thumbs hooking beneath her mask and pulling it off softly. Nula has the urge to look away, even if she physically can’t because of her sight almost circling 360° - a curse yet an evolutionary thing, even if the edges aren't as clear as they should be. Flush builds underneath various blotches of hyperdemis, colouring her otherwise sickly pale a darker teal, teeth unknowingly bared and naked, no lips to cover the unsightliness of them. Mandibles click and clash with nerves, grinding atop one another with such force Hiljada must think they should be smooth by now.
Yet no predicament of such reaches their features, many eyes taking their sweet time dragging along various unripe features and disablements, expression unreadable and awfully nerve-striking. The heartbeat thumping in her own ears cause falter in listening to that of Hiljada's, to perhaps understand the thoughts that must be coursing through them at the despicable, horrific sight of her, nausea boiling up in her stomach gasses, curving her back into an arch, pressing tighter against Hiljada even if wanting to wiggle out instead. She turns her head, away, claw coming up to cover it - but Hiljada's hand grips tight and it falls back down against the duvet.
“You're beautiful.” It’s but a whisper, a small sound emitted into thick air, squeeze of vocal cords - yet it's so loud in her ears that she feels they might burst open sheer meaning and agast. The gasp in her throat dies out, desperate to be heard yet too cowardly to crawl out - measly, small and weak, unpresent in the depths of her sense of self, crawled into the corners of her mouth, behind her teeth, hidden. Tongue a paralysed thing that lies against the bottom of her jaw, building up spit and saliva that she swallows thickly, almost drowning in it - because the way Hiljada is openly looking at her, not like a dish to be devoured, but a being to be held, suffocates.
She lets out a small whimper, the most she will ever let go out of herself, as lips meet her lack thereof’s again, pushing fingers up againts the curve of the small of her back, lifting her from ropes straining beneath them. A growl, throaty and guttural and animalistic in a way that she starts to think she might just be that meat on a platter again - a steak to be devoured and lusted over, nails digging into her spine, claiming and marking. Those eyes that she was so desperate to read as they traced the lines along the bones of her features are hidden in the crook of her shoulder, nose pressed against her neck, deep in the gruff of her fur, clutching the skin on the transition to her scales.
This isn't like the countless of other times people alike have grabbed at her flesh and torn at her ligaments, trying to claim a being so far away in mind that it almost be like performing necrophilia, anguished for any sense of self in what they can find between cartilage and spine - no, it feels like the succumb of sleep, fingers pressing beneath spiritual fat, through thick arteries and torn nerves, reaching nowhere yet everywhere at once. A feeling that is unlike the grasp of her mother, tail whipping around her, holding her still as she unveils her fraily precarious body, erasing any innocence that she might have mustered on late nights nose-deep into lines of text and smell, reenacting the moves of extraterrestrials and able-bodied Paupers - because she used to have it all, in that vast mind of hers.
Blinking, although not really, for she lacks the eyelids to do so, she feels the tears well up in the corners of the eyes, prickling the sharp eyelashes and stinging the column of her nose. It's too much - pressing away, teeth clenched, mandibles trembling and releasing a smell that calls danger, because she fears whatever vulnerability she has left in her emptied body will be taken from her too. Because she still has life in her heart that screams to live - if for what she does not know, but it yells as clear as when the day settles into the night and the stars shine their fault at her with titanium embracing sparks - energy nothing but a source for them to use and extinguish.
“You’re lying,” she finally manages out through the thick of her teeth and lump in her throat, wanting more to say but less to be heard. Even just two words make her almost spiral in her noggin, wanting to push her fingers into the many eyes that stare above them, unendingly watchful and free from any privacy she might bestow. Her claw travels to do just that, except it stops between the space of their eyebrows, nudging them away from the lack of comfort of her everso shaking shoulders, locking gaze yet again. It be like facing a predator the way their lips pull down and canines stick out from below, a snarl read in the wrinkles beneath her nose, nostrils flared. She looks personally offended almost, if not for the glint in her sclera that blinds.
Atmosphere, now travelled to a thick, uncuttable substance in the air from the light and suffocating gas it was before, sickens the liquids in her stomach, bubbling into the acres of her esophagus. Claws that were so gentle before, now rough against the clenches of her skin, dimpling into layers of fat and tissue that tremble to connect a lifeforce barely alive anymore. They trail and grip behind her ears, pressing the crook of her thumb against the soft incline of her jaw, almost tearing at flesh that sweats and glides, afraid with blood coarsing through every single artery they trace with their nails. A push and pull, but the role of pushing is for Nula only.
Growl present in their throat, bark of their leg, straining, knotting around the flush of her tail, pressing her down into the harsh divines of the rope. A mad look in their eyes that tell a story of being clinically insane, ravenous, and they push her down further, twine digging into her skin and snatching her scales off of her scabs, pinching. Her teeth grind against each other, hands moving against their shoulders to force them away - because she fears her tears might fall and make an embarrassment out of her yet again. Paupers shouldn’t cry and Hiljada has taught it many times to her when she was on the point of breakage. Because the prey that cries out to its mother rarely survives.
Their hands twitch and clench around her wrists, wrenching the claws away from their shoulders, pressing them right beside her own, knotting the rope over her fingers and nails to strain her against them. “Don’t fight,” they snarl, and Nula feels her heart race. Sweat beads behind the confounds of her dressing, held up by nasty buttons and velcro, not fit for her frame - and Hiljada’s digits trail along them, popping each one open, ripping cloth and metal, baring scars and uneveness on her body that she squirms to hide. A monster she is, nothing more than just a mutant of perfection. And she always has to ask the people above why they allowed her to be born in the first place.
“Stop thinking,” their tongue presses against her collarbone, licking up the sweat that treads along pulsating veins that branch like the vines of a tree, in a world distant from metal and rubber they live from. It’s hard to stop thinking when she’s been trained to do nothing but that. Clawing herself with a growl - the world wasn’t made for Paupers such as herself, bred to be ruthless and work in mines and crevices and acres of the ship, and perhaps work among engineering more such facilities to host fuel. Not to research puny Homo sapiens and other such extraterrestrials, lines of text already filling code in megabytes of cloud, history known and written. Yet, with some luck, she found Hiljada - someone that freshened her dying research and bloomed something else in her life. Her eyelashes twitch. Something she’s afraid to name.
The thumbs crook into her palms and wrists, bleeding through arteries and ligaments and marrow, confining. She can’t escape; she’s far too weak to thrash from pain. The strength that comes from them is inhumane and unnatural, an unknown source of where it came from, and Nula presses her tongue against the inside of her mouth and counts up to a million and sniffs through her mandibles, tasting the lingering drops of adrenaline and testosterone that thread, high amounts. Yelps, she leans back against the ropes screetching beneath their weight, biting her teeth into the twine to twitch away tears.
“Just stop it,” she murmurs along the rope, heaving, hands clenching by the sides of her head, still held down and pulsating with pain and burn. Skin scars alongside healing, grazing Hiljada’s own cells, intermingling even aside from bodily component transfer. It’s too intimate. More intimate than intercourse. She can tell Hiljada knows, because the eyes on the back of their palms widen into slightly bigger slits, light seeping through like the sun - and perhaps he is, as dangerous and eviscerating, destroying everything in its path. Yet along with it comes life and hope. Rays that prickle the heart in her throat. She can’t thank them.
Their clenched face trembles into a grimace, deep lines and wrinkles etched into skin where brows lay and a mouth snarls into a curl, teeth poking from lips. It’s a sight gone too soon, as they duck back down to sink into Nula’s flesh, right above her breast, just beneath her collarbone, drawing blood. Nula emmits no noise aside from the twitch her tail makes, squeezing over Hiljada’s lower body. She’s used to it, as violent and raw and terrifying as it is everytime, because some part of her does not feel afraid. Even if it’s the stupid, childish part of her. She can’t let that go as quickly as she could her dignity, and she leans her head back, shuffling and exhaling through her torn nostrils.
Claws that pin hers travel to scratch into her elbows, pushing them through the holes of the knotted twine, making sure she’d have trouble moving them even if they fully let go of her upper body. Sandpaper tongue like a snake, slithering over her chest and reaching a nipple, sliding wetly and circling the hairs that pepper it, trailing down from her thick mane. Nula makes a point to not react, even if she would rather push herself up against Hiljada’s front and gasp a yell from the tight of her throat than silently ‘blink’ up at the ever-unchanging ceiling - sterile and grey, terracotta, even.
A change in breath, ever irritated at the lack of response from the other, pressing their lips down and sucking over the areola. Nula almost succumbs into the twitch that travels along her shoulder blades, treacherous to reach Hiljada and ask for more roughness, even if she herself would do anything but that. The unsteady heart behind prime numbered ribs must be heard, as they pulse so roughly in her own drums that it’s the only comfort she can focus herself on to escape the pleasure. And she’s afraid her hypothesis is right, as teeth gently clamp around a nipple as a hand falls from one of her elbows and pinches and pulls at the other. Her mind bleaks.
Her now free hand clamps over her own jaw, thumb crooking beneath her deeply inhaling amalgamation of a nose, shaking - afraid. To cry is something she has always sought after, tearducts burning with ache and hurt, unable to blink, unable to shrink. A curse yet a blessing of some sick sorts, digits digging into her face and blood streaming past her palms being the only fluid of hers spilt. Choking on spit and grime, further sinking away. Each stroke over her delicate breasts pulling her back from the deep waters, warmth pooling around her throat and the suffocation almost strengthening. She wishes it would just stop, yet she knows she would break apart in a million pieces if she let that happen. She swallows the moans behind her teeth.
It’s like when she was a kid. A kid, yet not treated by one, since infancy being nothing but an excuse that biology and chemicals reject. Underdeveloped she was and afraid, but she couldn’t act like it. Her mother never treated her like it. She pulled and pushed at her skin, carving scars deeper than her surface, etched into the very blemishes of her mind, never to forget. The repeated cycle every day, done to make her ‘tougher’ yet only mashing and mixing her into a composition of dread, counting the seconds before her privacy would be breached and psyche would be suppressed. All it did was make her less of a Pauper. Yet it prepared her for many more of the similar instances that would come.
She’s borderline cattle, if not for her innate intelligence and perception, making her a great subject for unpaid labour. That did not stop other Paupers from taking advantage of her status and state, however, and only encouraged it. The amount of times she had been called for ‘research of disablements’, only for them to strip her of the small amount of clothing she had on her body and inspect areas with prongs and fingers were uncountable. It had become so common that she learnt to remove her sense of consciousness from her physical, to drift away into the routine of work and patients. She would scrub herself sore in the bathhouse later.
Hiljada, most likely noticing her drift with her body going limp, grips the back of her shoulder and leans their nose against the side of her face, pressing lips against bruised skin, trailing to her nose. They peel the hand clamped over Nula’s mouth with steady fingers, leaning a kiss on each and every clenched knuckle, softening the planes of their face, brows relaxing into a curl. Nula can feel them hesitate, almost, when they tilt back over to her maw, pushing gently. Nula lets them, even if her heart hammers against her chest and her digits tremble in Hiljada’s palm. Something to make them stay, even if just for this one moment. Even if they both will ignore the occurance of this for the next thousand years. A secret she can’t promise to keep.
From this angle, Nula can see most of Hiljada's body. Their figure is masculine at first glance; breasts pulled taught over their pectorals, only the small puckle of fat beneath their nipples showcasing an ambiguity in gender. The distribution of weight in their bodice also gives it away, mostly being bottom heavy, as cellulite gathers around their belly and thighs, drags of stretchmark strokes painting lilac skin. Even with such a silhouette, their shoulders remain wide and arms strong, keeping themselves virile. A thick tail sways from their coccyx, although not tapered at the end, and split into two similar nubs. They curl as if prehensile, even though Nula knows that logically they could not hold Hiljada's full mass.
Nula's other elbow still lies crooked in the deepness of twine, aching to escape, yet relaxed for now as she breathes through teeth pressed against teeth. It’s intoxicating. The hand on the back of her shoulder moves again, over the curve of her stomach, thumb pressing right beneath her belly button. She swallows her tongue as they graze lower, right over her folds, slicking up the already relatively wet area. She squirms again, breaking free of the kiss Hiljada held her in, turning her head to the side. This time Hiljada does not chase after the sweet of her lips, and presses her nose into the thick of her mane. Thumb sliding over her nub, Nula can feel Hiljada’s grin pull at her mouth over her skin as Nula arches into the feeling.
Fuck, no - her tail twitches, slithering over the thick of their waist instead, pushing against the small of their back and whisking with the tip of her rattle over their own area. Hiljada stills, momentarily, before pressing her thighs together, forcing the appendage away, growling into her mane. Nula feels their tremble as she scurries over her upper thigh instead, circling beneath her belly button - Hiljada's fingers slipping from the grip around her, accidentally nicking the tender flesh of her folds with her claw. Nula tenses up, curling into herself slightly as her limb forces Hiljada away. Normally she has no problem dealing with wounds and blood during sex, especially with Hiljada, who just loves to indulge in bites and scratches everytime she gets close, but the tear of her sensitive flesh has never particularly been a part of their play before - and Nula never found herself wanting it.
Hiljada, surprisingly, backs away, hands pulling away from Nula as if burnt, gaze focused on the deep blue blood dripping from Nula’s orifice. Their face is as unreadable as always, mouth pressed into a thin line and two of her eyes slightly squinted down. It forces Nula to surpress a shudder, turning her centre of attention to her elbow still strangled deep in the twine of the makeshift bed - claws scratching and pulling at the rope without wanting to damage it, as repairs are too costly and not worth losing a limb over. Especially not in these times. The light stays dim enough for Nula’s sight to be a bit blurred, making it ever harder to undo the knot Hiljada was able to so effortlessly make. Has she done this before, perhaps? With someone from her section?
Nay, it does not matter. The stick in her throat and grip around her heart are a mere consequence of frivolous fear she feels at the graze of her skin. Even if she has felt it time and time again when she’s realised Hiljada has escaped her glass cage, finding them hours later soaked with blood, laying on the torn bedding of a foreign Pauper. All of them ended in the same desecrated way, and Nula would then scold her for the mess she made, even if the tug inside of her - irrational and totally explainable - pleads to be devoured that very same way. Not once has Hiljada had such a vigour to consume her - to want her - and part of her is glad. She’s treated gentle, with care, even if nails dig into her and whisper words of discouragement in her ears late at night, when the fog is thick, and the tears down her face.
Suddenly, being shaken out of her stupor, Nula feels a slick passage over her orifice, turning a stirred and alarmed gaze down. Hiljada, crouched down over her groin, hands on either side of her wide tail, thumbs digging into the skin near her arse, hiding away the sight she wants to see as the moistness trails lower, poking at the newly made wound. Holds back a keen, hand pushing back into the very same twine she had just desperately tried to escape from, circling her rattle back over Hiljada’s middle, pressing. Eyes flick up to meet hers, and she wishes she could close them for the intense bloodlust that reaches her senses. Her mandibles tick together, scent glands swollen and overused, teeth biting down on teeth.
“What are you-” she's cut off by a swirl over her clit. Her hips jolt upwards, held firmly down by strong arms and claws digging into her skin. The same ones that nicked the part she's licking now, the hint of apology she swore to have seen twinkle in those eyes having completely dissipated at the taste of blood. Luckily, she heals quick, and the wound must have already scarred over with the time that has passed. However, the moistness of herself doesn't stop, and she sweats, looking down again - their scleras do not meet hers this time, and something in her squeezes at that, but then she notices that their tongue continues to circle the edges of her cut, leaving it raw and bleeding, milking her dry off of blood she spills. No wonder she feels this lightheaded, even if it's just a cover up for the real reason.
Velvet of the shimmer of the cyanic blood, spilled, and continuing to spill - tongue probing deeper, harder, licking inside of her in ways no one has done before. Not physically, not emotionally. Crack of her soul, burst open like the shell of an egg - yolk spilling from her heart, between the glimmering teeth of the other, smile pulling taut. Their head tilts, eyes curling into crescents, particularly fond yet mischievious all the same, mocking, almost, giggles spilling past their lips and vibrating through her core. Their fingers curl around the edge of her waist, where fat pools over her hips in a rounded shape, tugging her closer to their mouth. It’s utterly intoxicating, and if Nula didn’t know any better, she would have thought Hiljada had bewitched her too.
Tonight is her rebirth. Back arching up into the atmosphere as skin strangles over the rope bound in the corner, like a bug trapped in a spider's web, stuck to the very confines of her own home. Fingers trail over their shoulder beneath her, gripping her slick flesh, writhing with a swallowed groan down her throat. To be in such a situation should be embarrassing at first, and arousing at last - yet only now, when Hiljada has their tongue probing around her walls is she considering the whole reason why she let them sleep over. It was a dark night, she tries to convince herself, and the loneliness of her capture would just further depart their willingness.
Except, that is untrue. They sleep the same in every place - as shown by multiple experiments she has proven to work by meticulously swapping out the materials inside of the cage and recording REM sleep, exhibiting no significant change overall. There is no reason for them to be here, over her hips, hands pressed to her sides, other than for the fact that she welcomes their presence. Which should not be something worth discussion over - be it extremely unprofessional for the situation and relationship they have, and sleeping with a patient isn't worth losing one's life over. Yet, even still, she presses her claws over the back of Hiljada's head and pushes her down, feeling the shiver-inducing scrape of their sharpened teeth against her tender skin.
Blood that should have still been streaming has long since been patched up, even through all of the stinging licks that Hijlada forced over her wound. It's clotted over, right on her labia minora, pulled to the side by Hiljada's thick thumb, scraping lightly against the scab. A flash of hot streams through her veins, momentarily, as she thinks of more scars to be written on the surface area of her skin, carved deep enough to reach yellowed bone and tear at pulsing arteries. Shivering, her fat tail squeezes around Hiljada's plump waist, their wet tongue pressing down on her clit again. Her back scratches against the twine, reddened and bruised, arching her spine, tears pricking in the corners of her gleamy eyes.
Fuck, she feels she's close. Her chest heaves with heavy breaths, jaw working a cork, grinding her crooked teeth over one another. She tries to surpress any noises she might make, although a moan slowly bubbles up her throat, spilling past her lips - pressing knuckles against her mouth to muffle it, although she's sure Hiljada has heard it, as her delectable stroking stops. Their eyes, wide and yellow, shine up at her with an expression that can not be read as anything other than engrossed, even if directed to someone like Nula. Her own gaze darts away with something like shame bunching in her gut - not out of the fear of what her sounds of pleasure may sound like to foreign ears, but for the mere concept of her pleasure itself.
It's the peak of her vulnerability, to trust someone that much to be able to vocalise it without worry. But she is not in that state right now, as much as she would wish to be - and as she looks down upon Hiljada's watchful gaze, she turns away, eyes stinging. “That was a slip of tongue,” she musters, the best excuse she can come up with for now despite her practises infront of a greasy mirror to explain herself better, to say it was just the rattle of her tail or blame it entirely on something foreign. Now, though, as her cheeks flame beneath the hot stare of Hiljada, she feels herself crumble apart with anything her brain might have conjured up before as a last ditch effort.
Hiljada stays silent, much to Nula’s detrimental grumble, and instead, the curl of her mouth makes itself known - stretching and softening the planes of her cheeks, showcasing sharp teeth and sharper canines. Nula gulps, turning her face away, only to have it guided back to gleamy, mischievous eyes with a thumb against her chin. There’s no shame in the way they stare, and that makes Nula want to cower all the more into the crooks and crevices of her home, just like the snake Hiljada described her as when they first met. “I’ll do anything to hear you make that sound again,” their breath ghosting right over her temple, propped up from the earlier position over her groin, and Nula can’t help but miss the feeling.
Creaning over the slope of her neck, their fingers snake, threading through hairs and fur, pressing their lips against Nula’s again. Nula wants to push away - after all, that very same tongue that’s swiping over her teeth was deep in the threads of her core just a minute ago, and she can’t help but taste the salt on her, shivering minutely. They don’t let her break the kiss, noticing the insistent fidgeting in place as their hand moves back down to her slit, middle finger coaxed easily into her, slick with arousal. She angles her eyes up, mouth falling open with a stricken gasp, allowing Hiljada to access her maw even further, sucking over the remnants of flesh and tissue in the corners of her muzzle.
A growl against the side of her jaw, followed by a shiver from the other, deep and primal, in a way Nula has only seen them act whenever their stomach churns with hunger, drool dripping from their lips, teeth barren. It makes Nula realise that perhaps she is the feast for tonight - back subconsciously arching and fingers tightening over their shoulders - and the idea of it doesn’t oppose her. Perhaps the bloom in her chest is but a new display of fear, she reminisces, pushing a thumb over Hiljada’s cheek to bring her back to her mouth. The finger within her moves in jittery pumps, with no real rhythm Nula can pick up on, and it makes her almost jump out of her skin everytime a claw grazes over her bundle of nerves in varying pressures.
“Hiljada I-” her mouth waters - she opens it, closes it, licks her teeth, tries again. “I want to touch you - let me feel you. Don’t push away.” She leaves the please to hang in her throat, not knowing the reaction that would arise out of Hiljada at such a vulnerable display. Their tongue laps up her saliva, canines digging into the corner of her mouth, smirking a little. Their shoulders pinch Nula’s, pressing her deeper, into her, their index joining too in the depths of her slick. Nula almost lets out another sound - if not for the utter resilience and bark in her throat she has towards hearing a reply first. She does not want to be the only one touched - to feel as though she’s taken advantage of as Hiljada grins and picks at her, leaving her cold.
Their free hand stretches over her breast, pinching a swollen nub between her forefingers and Nula inhales a bit too sharply for liking. Her head spins, arms clutching around Hiljada’s bare neck, claws grabbing ahold of their horns. Yet, Hiljada is avoiding her eyes, she can feel it. Even as she tugs and pulls at her tit, her face stays buried against the side of her jaw, sucking her skin red. Their tongue clicks resolutely, squeezing her chest almost painfully as Nula winces, flushing her cheeks a bright dark. “Go ahead,” they eventually say, words heavy on their tongue, and Nula can not pick out the emotional intonation in the vowels and grumbles, ears pinning to the side of her head as Hiljada doesn’t even dare give her a second to finish her thought.
Her tail trembles, shaking itself closer to her groin again, pressing it horizontally against their clit, hoping to add some friction by moving it slow at first. Nula doesn’t notice any change in Hiljada at first until she angles the rattle and the other freezes, hissing a puff through clenched teeth. They curse beneath their breath, jabbing harder inside of Nula until her movements stutter, appendage trailing away from the desired place. Must have been some sort of revenge on arousing the flush high on their cheeks, Nula muses through pants, sweat sticking her mane to her forehead. Their fingers travel to rest over the muscled planes of their back, feeling around where wings had once sprouted from under their shoulders. How would it feel for Hiljada, to tear that skin open again with her nails?
“Did you like that?” Nula whispers, not even knowing why softness seeps into her words and forces a small gasp from her throat. She sounds breathy and utterly too wrecked to tease her like this, yet their head stay lodged away from her, warm and sweaty against the side of her face. She allows herself the satisfaction for a second, before the fingers steadily kneeding inside of her add another, and she feels herself become too full to express any smugness she might have mustered over the past xxx years. Thumb swiping across her clit, arching herself back and away - yet up and against Hiljada all the same, their breasts pushing against her bigger ones. Her claws shake to grab ahold of one, inching down to press her tongue over a dark nipple - and that’s when Hiljada keens.
A finger slips out of her, accidentally, sweaty and panting with a face full of twine as Nula has moved down and away for them to bury themselves in her fur. They let out a groan as her mandibles tug over her breast, tongue swirling over her nipple. Nula can almost feel her pull away, but her tail curls and slithers over her rigid body, snaking over her plump and pudge, squeezing her in place. The sounds they make go louder, and Nula feels her own self flush at that, even if she were to try and seperate herself from the other. She feels herself throb, and to distract herself, licks her teeth and grazes herself lower, over the round of her belly where marks stretch like paint from a brush. There was no need for her to keep these marks except for the fact she found them mirthful in some peculiar way. It made her mind wander if she ever felt the same about hers when she kissed them.
It is then that Nula has moved so far down that Hiljada can barely reach her navel with her fingers, knees bent over the side of Nula’s head and struggling to keep balance on the rope. Their claw hovers over patchy, flushed skin, digits wet with slick, unable to wipe them off before Nula leans down and presses her tongue against her too. Salt and sweat settle in her mouth, Hiljada letting out a breath of heavy air above her, clenching herself down around air, as if expecting Nula to be as intruding as her. She’s not, though, and curls her hand steadily over their thigh, feeling the muscle twitch beneath pliant and soaked flesh, as if yearning for a deeper touch - for scars to litter upon scars, like they’re so used to giving, but being given nothing but compliancy in return. Nula is too weak for that, she muses, pressing a chaste, barely there kiss against the crease of her groin, as if afraid to be found sappy and aching.
They fold over, face fully pushing into the rope with their arms crushing beneath her own weight, tangling them through the thick locks of Nula’s mane instead. They mumble incoherently, and Nula finds herself straining to listen, ears perking beside her head - yet she know it to be useless, and instead brings her focus back to swirling her tongue around their regions. It’s similar to hers in structure and smell, but the overall state of it varies hugely - both have coarse hair growing from their pubic area, except Hiljada’s being less inclined to curl into swirls at the ends. Their cunt also seems generally more biologically efficient, even if the whole amalgamation that is them struggles to count up the correct number of ribs and sometimes bleeds from elbows and knees, as if half-hazardly thrown together without much thought behind it. It has less barren patches of skin where Nula’s fur refused to grow since puberty, less of the swollen labia and tinging clit that seems a bit too exposed to be safe without a proper loincloth covering it.
And the smell, being so biologically and technically similar, still can’t help but make her mouth water through the clog in her nose. She licks again, hesitantly, looking up to coax a reaction out of the other, who seems so utterly focused on trying not to break apart as their face stays buried and away from her sight, sweat trickling down the narrow slope of her neck and chest. Nula wants to observe more - to watch her fully as she unravels her bit by bit every second, noting down every hitch in breath and twitch of her muscles, straining to break away from her gaze. It lights a hot flame within her, and suddenly she knows deeply why Hiljada was so enthralled with tasting her earlier. There is no blood to lick up, yet iron sticks to the back of her throat and behind her eyes, treading to her cheeks.
Her tongue treads deeper, pushing into the ridges of her surprisingly soft and teethless core, swirling around to lick up the varying tastes of slick that stick to the walls, every inch having a slightly different stench and flavour - she relishes it. It’s when Hiljada bucks her hips down and lets out a high moan that she feels she has found her hurt, pulsating against her savoured appendage, begging to be touched further. And touch she does - fingers clenching tighter around shaking thighs, breathing through her lightheadedness in favour of knowing and feeling more of Hiljada - anything to sample her like fresh meat on a plate. And it’s like their roles are reversed almost - Nula chasing for their tang like Hiljada usually does, except with the sweet and citrus undertone of her organ thumping behind her ribcage and soaring.
She continues - not caring for the way their hips grind down on her mouth, suffocating her, and instead feeding into every new wave of slick and grool that follows, almost making her tongue into a knot from the slip. Her mandibles crane and pinch over where Nula calculates for Hiljada’s clitoris to be, gaze too blurry to trust on its own, and she thinks right as those thighs almost squeeze the brains out of her skull if not for claws barely keeping them open. Her tongue is heavy and tired inside of Hiljada, persistent in more to see and hear and feel and taste and smell - senses overrun and heated, clouds through her mind with no sky present. She’s unrelenting, flicking the meat of her appendage over her clit and that’s when a new flavour settles on her buds.
Hiljada wracks through a shivering moan as she comes, pinching and pulling the fur still trapped between her fingers, shaking to stay awake and keep themself from falling down on Nula. She keeps at it through the overstimulation she can feel in yanking at her mane, silently telling her to stop, even as she keeps swirling and prodding, tasting and smelling and Gods, if it doesn’t feel like Hiljada put a spell on her. ‘Cause her back makes a delectable arch and she lets out a high moan as she tries to push Nula away - and all Nula can do in return is nuzzle into her, breathing in the condensed sweat stuck to her throat, gasping through suffocation.
“N-Nula-” she gets out before a moan wrenches out of her throat again, head pulling up as sheens of sweat shine in the dim on the moon, artificial light painting her pale. Nula wants to know what her expression looks like - wants to savour it and print it into the nanograms of her brain - write it down and copy it into fiberglass and digital print - draw it with a precision she doesn’t have but is keen on learning to capture this. So her one hand slips from their thigh and moves up, slowly pushing themselves out from under her, tongue rolling back into the safety behind her teeth. Her fingers trail to reach Hiljada’s presumably dazed face, and as she looks into the depths of two gleaming eyes, skin swollen red, she feels her heart thump.
“Are you glad I awoke you from your slumber?” Nula teases, careful as always, tilting her head to the side as she gauges their reaction. They huff, turning away - but of course Nula notices the slight of her lips that shine, curled up, like a smile. Nula presses her own against them.
“I despise you,” Hiljada rumbles out against their teeth, yet kisses back with the same fervour, as if subconsciously, almost. They’re back in their starting position, Nula muses, swirling her tail between Nula’s legs that now properly rest straddled upon her girth. Something about it makes Nula heated, pushing past the seam of Hiljada’s lips, brushing over their sharp bottom canines that prickle blood at the tip of her tongue - no doubt Hiljada tasting it, as her earlier doze has slowly started transforming back into her familiar aggression. Push and push and push until everyone leaves you, and then devour alive the ones that were dumb enough to not take the earlier hint. Nula was never the smartest.
And still, even with the haze that laced her words and bare meaning behind the intonation, Nula can’t help but swallow down the sting in her heart threatening to boil over, prickling at her throat and eyes. Perhaps she’s just too pent up - her arms move back around Hiljada, pressing them closer, chest against chest, cursing the fact that she can’t feel her pulse against the column of her breasts, pushing her even closer. She wants to hear it like she usually can - familiarity in it that she welcomes whenever she visits the other reclined in the corner of their cell, staring back as if expecting her. And she probably was, as Nula is one of the sole Paupers that care for them, that are able to get close enough without possibly risking their own life to care for theirs.
It’s her secret, the one she’ll keep locked behind ribs and flesh and arteries, buried down into stone and gravel, heart but a measly crumpled piece of flesh if ever to be found again. Because there is nothing between them but animalistic desire - to devour, to claim, to rut. As Hiljada’s claws showcase their words, carving into the soft of Nula’s belly, pressing deep until Nula can physically feel themself wrap her around their finger - she knows that she’s lost herself already, so soon. They do nothing but grin, teeth nicking the patch of skin beneath her tense ear, drawing blood from the artery there and sucking her like those damned vampires that they had once told her about. Although, Hiljada would be less bat like, and more akin to a spider, with eight eyes - only two of them open - to stare down at her with thirst.
Her blood is a delicacy, she declares, holding back a sound for the nth time as they suck another bruise next to the last, drawing liquid scarlet. Paupers are not only to be farmed for their flesh and solid, but also for the many apparent healing effects their liquidised states can have. Their bone marrow would get ionised, drank from the source and praised for the cherry flavour it carries, even as the victim has to lay there and take it - ichor would be poured in glasses and clanked against each other as one licks the cup clean, something akin to what Homo sapiens would call wine, but with the added detriment of gore and cannibalism that is so engrained in her culture that she can’t shake the feeling off of normality.
She feeds on her. It's ravenous, insatiable, unruly - yet it fits in the completeness of her sense of self. They barely graze over the artery-deep wound they’ve wretched into Nula’s shoulder, uncaring for the way she struggles to breathe, shaking and flailing like a fish above water. Twitching a hand out, they press against the side of her face, tongue heavy with blood and gore, skin torn, lipping out, as if nothing is in disarray, as if Nula doesn't call out their name and to God, heart heavy with a weight sat on it, trudging into the depths of her canine. She feels herself sink deeper, another bite against her jaw, this time breaking through bone and cartilage - Nula cries out.
And it’s this treacherous pulsing behind her ribcage, unsteady and bled, that rips any mask of all of this being mere insatiable lust after all. She feels it string over her core and pull down tight to her groin, flush her cheeks and numb her brain to the point she can do nothing but whimper helplessly into the crook of Hiljada’s shoulder, stench filled with her. It hurts - more than the gashes that pool, already stitching back together, claws relentless and unwavering over the thick folds of her belly - no, she can feel as it clogs her throat and screams at her to hold Hiljada down until they lose all feeling in their limbs and stay eternally entangled with hers. It’s dangerous, yet Nula doesn’t have the sense to scold herself, losing herself, bit by bit.
Perhaps what hurts the most is that Nula is utterly alone in all of this. Even with the sloppy kiss at the space between collarbone and breast, the thumb over an overstimulated clitoris, the whispers against the twitching ear - she knows that the same feeling does not course through them, and that it never will, as their heart does not clench at the sight of her, does not pulse at the twitch of pain, does not even beat at the sounding of her own name. She is nothing, and Nula is nothing but reluctant to accept that - after all, she knows the feel of loneliness by soul - and as the gaping in her chest widens, so does her mouth to accommodate a broken moan.
Those fingers push back into the slick of her cunt, easing its way with no difficulty at the extreme arousal already set many hours earlier. Three digits at once however is still something to burden, so Nula arches up into the sky, the peaks of her breasts grazing over Hiljada’s own, trembling and writhing beneath her. Did Hiljada feel like this too, when her tongue was deep enough inside of them they swore they could taste their heart directly? She keens again as the claw curls into just the right spot, digging deep and pushing her over the edge, biting a mark blue over her nipple.
The waves wash over her with pain and pleasure in sync, biting down on her tongue to muffle any more sounds she dare make - the last couple already being embarrassing enough and forcing her gaze away from where it barely focused on Hiljada above. They must have that smirk plastered on their face again, grinning down like a shark at the fact that they got what they wanted. Her heart clenches around nothing, almost asking for a claw to caress and squeeze it back like Hiljada has done with the rest of her body. But she knows that it is time to go, as her body settles back from her high, still sticking with sweat and cum.
The warmth that embraced her slips out without a word, palms leaving her hips and lips leaving her chest. She can’t help but feel dejected, even if she had predicted this long before any of this started - because something inside of her still holds hope for the way Hiljada gazes at her, face unreadable yet utterly evoking every hair on Nula’s body to stand. Because that is the effect she has on her, and they’re just going to leave her here, to swallow down any words and kisses and stall at the corner of her room with no real resemblance of a home to go back to.
Nula finally looks back at them, and her breath catches in her throat.
There’s an emotion on their face that is so utterly dejected and readable and human that Nula can’t help but thread those fingers beneath their horns and pull them against her chest, cradling their skull with any remnant of fuzz still left in her system - because she wouldn’t do this sober and working. Their claws come up behind her, folding beneath Nula to press divets into her back, pressing painfully into many wounds that have already gone the process of proliferation in such a short time. It terrifies Nula, as her arms squeeze tighter, not wanting to let go, feeling shakes tremble through her body as a hand comes up to rest at the base of their neck, knuckles painting over slits of eyes.
Only then does Nula half-realise what is happening, and they push away, torn between their mind and heart to decide and ultimately choosing the instincts inside of her that scream at the touch of another. She rips away her gaze then, feeling the last remnants of warmth slip from Hiljada’s fingers as they leave her body - to point a crooked one at the door with so much as a tremble. “Go back,” she manages a whisper, not trusting herself for anything louder in fear of a crack of her voice revealing her true vulnerability. Her heart was laid so bare just now, so easy to snatch, that Hiljada must have thought Nula practically sat on her knees and begged for them to take it.
She can not give him the opportunity.
She hears them leave.