What We Do to Survive

Feeling stuffed was a novel sensation for Miranda. Well, at least in the ‘well fed’ sense of the word. Generations of self-conscious male mages had developed enough first- and second-circle body alteration spells to ensure that she was typically quite stuffed towards the end of a successful hunt, but that was besides the point.

Even before coming to Avalon she’d never been able to feed quite as much as she would have liked. She had never been in danger of starving, but she had always been a junior member of her flock and thus one of the last in line to toy with any captured men. She typically managed to supplement her meals with snacks from her many sisters, but that just wasn’t enough to truly satisfy her.

Coming to Avalon had not helped matters in the slightest. Her first disastrous hunt had left her a broken wreck chained up in her Master’s dorm room. Since then she’d been much more careful and successful, but there was only so much she could do when surrounded by so many wary mages.

Most of the time she had to resort to hunting in whatever city Avalon’s portal was currently located, but there were only so many men that she could easily disappear before authorities took notice.

It was enough to grow and survive, but she had long become used to the dully throbbing hunger in her belly that never truly went away and the itch between her legs that no amount of self-pleasure could scratch. Even while she was feeding she could still feel the constant ache, her instincts screaming to take and take and take and never stop.

Now though, those same instincts simply wanted to curl up into a ball and nap before a roaring hearth. For years she had been content with one meal a week, two or three if she could get them. Now she drank her fill every day, each meal just as good as draining a virile young man down to the bone.

Even in just the past few weeks she had felt her powers grow by leaps and bounds. The hot, wonderful, agonizing, burning mana in every vial filled her with energy like she’d never felt before. She was not skilled enough to feel out the exact effects it was having on her, but her body had never felt so strong and durable and her mana pool had nearly doubled in size.

Out of curiosity she had run a sharp knife down along her palm and the scratch it had left behind had healed before her eyes. Though she did not yet feel confident in casting a fourth-circle spell, she knew she finally had enough mana to safely attempt, something she had not expected until well into the next term.

More than that, she felt alive in a way she’d never imagined was possible. Between her new diet, the absence of constant punishment from her Master’s original bond, and truly knowing how much her Master valued her, she finally felt optimistic for the future. Perhaps it was not the future she had always dreamed of, but she no longer feared that her only fate was the same death that had found her old flock.

It was… good. Probably the first good thing that had come out of her time at Avalon. Perhaps it was simply the magic wrapped around her soul speaking, but most days she considered her freedom a small price to pay for safety and a full belly.

Avalon was a dangerous place. It was far too easy to do nothing wrong and simply end up in the wrong place at the wrong time or accidentally do something to provoke a wrathful upper year. Those desperate moments as she fled from Kwesta’s invisible blades of wind haunted her nightmares.

As she’d told her Master, she hadn’t done anything to provoke the older student. Kwesta had simply decided she was trying to ‘steal’ her unappealing oaf of a fiance and decided the easiest solution was to remove her from the equation entirely.

That day, when he’d stepped between them and firmly told Kwesta to back off or else… Just as the desperate moments before it haunted her nightmares, that memory always lit a fire in her core and made her feel… precious. More than any promise or threat Orion had made, it was that moment that had convinced her to swear herself to him and mean it.

She hadn’t regretted her decision yet. She wasn’t really sure she could regret it anymore. Most of the time her oaths simply hovered at the edges of her conscience and she didn’t remember any changes they may have made, but she was certain she wasn’t quite the same person that she’d been when she’d sworn them a scant few weeks earlier. It probably should have scared her, but it didn’t. It couldn’t.

Still, even if she couldn’t regret her decisions, she could absolutely acknowledge that her new life came with quite a bit of new work. Her Master demanded only the best from his slaves, and she spent long hours each day striving to meet his expectations. This past week alone she’d spent more time practicing her pure mana manipulation skills than she had in the entire semester before her new binding.

Between that, spellcasting, reading, and her many other commitments, she’d hardly had a moment to relax. She hoped her efforts would be enough to impress Orion today. She’d felt how disappointed he was in all their skills during the previous week’s training session and the shame of it had almost brought her to her knees. She never wanted to feel like that again if she could help it.

That was why she was currently rushing towards her dorm room. Their session wasn’t for another hour, but she wanted to arrive at the reserved room early so she could spend some time warming up before they began. In fact she was already running slightly behind schedule. She still needed to wash up, style her hair into something more appropriate for combat practice, and change into a more practical outfit than the strapless sundress she was wearing.

She was slightly out of breath and distracted when she finally arrived. That was why it took her until after she’d already kicked off her heels to notice the two intruders waiting for her inside. One of them was her Master. Orion sat casually in her desk chair, hands folded in his lap and bare feet kicked up on her bed as though he owned the place. Well, in a way he did own the place. Miranda certainly didn’t mind, anything for him.

The other was a familiar girl, though she had been in a much worse state the last time Miranda had seen her. It was Orion’s blonde friend who had been attacked at her home shortly after her rebinding. She was sitting perched at the very edge of Miranda’s bed, hands fiddling nervously with the hem of her dress.

Miranda’s eyes widened and she quickly bowed her head. Perhaps if it had been just the two of them or they’d been in public her entrance would have been appropriate, but as it was it was unthinkable to disrespect him like this in front of his guest.

“I’m sorry M––”

Orion’s sharp glare cut her off before she could say anything more and he subtly jerked his head towards his friend, then tapped his neck with two fingers. The gestures themselves didn’t tell her much, she had a number of ideas for what they could mean, but it was hard to know for sure. Thankfully she had much more than that to go off of. The impressions she could feel through their bond gave her a rough idea of what he wanted.

“––Orion, I didn’t see you there!” She turned towards the girl and bowed her head towards her as well. “It is gladening to see you’ve recovered. Orion was worried out of his mind when he saw what happened.” Gesturing broadly around the room, she let out a deprecating laugh, “I wasn’t expecting any company else I’d have tidied up a little.”

Orion’s glare vanished as quickly as it had appeared, replaced by the polite smile that Miranda had once spent two weeks coaching him through. Miranda’s eyes flicked briefly towards the girl. Thankfully it didn’t seem as though she’d noticed anything. “Is there something I can help you with? I assume this isn’t a social visit.”

For a moment Miranda worried that she’d been too hasty moving past the usual niceties of welcoming someone into her home. She knew he hated what he saw as pointless blathering, but she wasn’t really sure what role she was supposed to be playing here. She barely knew anything about Orion’s friend, nor what exactly was going on here.

If something she did or said contradicted whatever narrative Orion was spinning, she would likely be in a lot of trouble. Orion had yet to punish her since her rebinding and she was not looking forward to experiencing whatever horrors he might come up with when he was actually trying to make her suffer.

Fortunately it seemed as though things were moving the way Orion wanted them too. A gentle pulse of heat echoed down their bond and Miranda almost moaned out loud before she could catch herself.

“Unfortunately not,” Orion said solemnly, “I’m very sorry to impose on you so suddenly but I was hoping you could do me something of a favor. My dear friend Lea here is going through some rough times and needs somewhere to stay for a time. I would take her in myself but I have some volatile alchemical experiments going on and I’m afraid my dorm isn’t a very safe space to be right now.”

He sounded honestly regretful and Miranda thought she might have believed him if she hadn’t known the truth. It seemed as though Orion’s friend was not to learn of any of his more grim work.

“Of course! Anything for you, Orion.” As if she could say anything else.

“Oh thank you Miranda, I can’t express how much that means to me. Things have devolved so far that I don’t think it's safe for her to stay out in the city. It's just going to be for a few weeks. Only until the portal moves to…”

“To the Gulivine Republic,” she jumped in quickly, “Of course! And once we’re there I’ll be happy to find you somewhere safe for her to stay in the long term. I’ve got plenty of room and it will be nice to have a roommate! It gets lonely here sometimes.”

Orion opened his mouth to continue but the girl beat him to it. “Are you sure it's alright? I don’t want to be a bother.” she said softly, her voice meek and eyes downcast.

Miranda rushed to reassure her, “Of course, of course! No trouble at all! Any friend of Orion’s is a friend of mine and what sort of friend would I be if I didn’t help a friend in need?” She winced internally at how silly that sentence sounded, but it seemed to calm the other blonde so perhaps that sort of over-the-top positivity was appropriate in this situation.

“Okay.” The girl finally looked up at Miranda, her big blue eyes wide. “Miranda, right? Orion talks about you a lot. Thank you for letting me stay with you, I promise I won’t be a bother.”

“It’s my pleasure, I mean it. I know Orion would do the same for me. Has done the same for me, even.”

“Oh?”

Miranda smiled as cheerfully as she could manage. “I’ll tell you about it some time. It's a long story.”

Orion cut back in before they could move further off topic. “Yes, thank you Miranda. It's a weight off my chest to know my dear Lea is in such good hands. I have a few things I need to take care of, so how about you get her settled and I’ll come by with food around dinner time? I know you have some plans soon so I won’t keep you. I’m sure no one will mind if you’re running just a few minutes late.”

Miranda nodded. “Of course. That sounds great.” She was sure Orion would have more specific instructions for her during their scheduled training but she was allowed to be late. She glanced around the room. That was good, she needed to get some things out of sight before she could leave a stranger, even a trusted stranger, alone in her room.

“Then I’ll see you both at dinner.” Orion stood up and walked over to his friend. To Miranda’s surprise, he took the initiative to pull her into a tight hug, whispering something she couldn’t quite make out into his friend's ear. They stayed that way for a long moment, then he pulled away.

“Be good for Miranda, okay?” he told Lea quietly, “I know it's not the best accommodations, but it's just for a little bit while everything settles down. You’ll be safe here. No one but Miranda and I can get to you here. Not those men, not the Earthshadows, not anyone.”

“Okay,” she replied in a small voice, “I trust you, Orion. Be safe?”

“I will.”

He turned away, glanced at Miranda with an unreadable expression on his face, then hurried out the door, leaving the two girls alone in her room. As the door slammed shut, she could just barely hear Lea whisper something under her breath. It sounded suspiciously like ‘I love you’. Miranda almost felt sorry for her, but she couldn’t. To love her Master was only natural after all.