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whomeidontknowthem · 6 months ago

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Eyes on me – an interactive whump story. Part 5.

Previous part. Masterpost.

Content: institutionalized slavery, imprisonment, dehumanizing language, it/its for an inhuman whumpee, pet whump, whipping, blood, physical abuse, withholding of food, training, torture, intimate whumper, carewhumper, mentioned pet death, tell me if i missed something

Lord Teelo didn’t strike.

He lowered his arm, eyes never straying from holding the creature’s terrified gaze. The room reeked of blood, now streaming down the lord’s fingers in a warm waterfall. He worked hard on pushing his fury back, taking it under control as many times before. He was in control. He would show it, careful and persistent and levelheaded. He would make sure it remembered the lesson forever. The crop was not meant for punishments, it was too short, too soft – he hadn’t meant to punish it. He was going to be a kind and gracious owner. It had left him no choice!

He opened the door, finding the redheaded guard still in the corridor.

“Get a proper whip,” he ordered. “More chains – gods damned handcuffs, whichever idiot thought of leaving it like this?! And a knife, scissors – or whatever, something to file its atrocious claws.”

The guard stared at him, not in the face – at his arm. Lord Teelo felt it – the consistent drip-drip-drip of his blood. He didn’t feel the ache yet. Nothing but the quiet, cold fury he couldn’t wait to unleash at the world. Haltingly, the guard started, “Should I bring someone to take a look at–”

“I have told you what you should do,” his voice came out as a hiss.

“Yes, my lord,” the guard saluted and hesitated only a moment before running down the corridor.

Lord Teelo closed the door with a loud crash. He paced inside, steps echoing around the room, as the pain slowly started to radiate out. He hated it. Oh how he wished he could slice the thing’s skin just this moment, not waiting for anything and anyone. He picked up the crop once more, stoped before the creature – it cowered to the very corner between the wall and its cage, never letting its eyes away from him. Oh, now it was looking. It dared to look!

“You think yourself smart?” the lord hissed. “Think you did something good for yourself? Oh, no, you’re gonna regret this. You’re gonna regret this so much.”

The pain seeped into his consciousness with every heartbeat, radiant and nauseatingly familiar. He held a handkerchief to the cuts until it filled with deep red. He threw it away – it landed in a wet disgusting lump on the table, by the bowl of wet disgusting meat. Oh how the lord had tried to be a nice host, how he had tried to accommodate this, this–

“Damned, ungrateful, hateful beast!” Lord Teelo roared. The glass of the bowl nearly slipped from his bloodied fingers when he grabbed it, and then shattered to thousands pieces to the side of the creature’s head. Its dinner fell onto the floor, useless. Oh, it wouldn’t get any, it would have to work, to beg for any crumb from then on – it would regret, regret it so much!..

The door slid open soundlessly after a short knock, letting in the heavy footsteps and the clanging of metal. The lord turned on his heels, facing the guard. “And why in the world have you not brought a damned healer!” he hissed. “Can’t you see I’m bleeding out!”

The guard blinked. “But you have–”

“YOU DARE ARGUE WITH ME?!”

He was struggling to breathe, chest heaving with effort. The blood was still warm down his arm, still bright on the broken glass and light wood of his floors. How could the idiot not understand!

There were chains in the guard’s arms and a leathery length of the whip. Lord Teelo snatched it and demanded, “Chain it up!” The guard hesitated, opened his mouth. “NOW!”

He did. The lord watched as he came to the beast, careful with his steps, cautious of it. It squeezed itself deeper into the corner. Lord Teelo could see it shaking. He was delighted to see it shaking. The guard reached out, the first cuff prepared, and Lord Teelo watched from a step away as it lifted its hands up, close to its chest. Its teeth were bared, pupils wide and eyes wider. It tried saying something, but what came out was only a mess of sounds with no meaning.

The guard squeezed its arm even as it tried to avoid it. It whined and fought back, tried getting out of the grasp, tried pushing him away, tried and fought and struggled as he cursed under his nose. Its claws went through the skin of his palm ripping out a sharp hiss. It managed to raise its hind leg as the cuff clicked around its wrist, its claws scratching against the metal in an effort that only delayed the inevitable.

Lord Teelo had little patience left. He stepped forward, connecting his heel with the middle of the creature’s tail. It yelped, flinched backwards – its head connected with the wall, and before it could regroup the second handcuff was in place. After that, restraining its legs was only a matter of time.

“Turn it around,” the lord ordered. Chains clang as it fought in an ever increasing panic. “To the wall, yes… yes, just like that.” The locks rattled, forced closed. The guard let the key fall onto the ground, forcing the creature to kneel. It hid its tail between its legs, whining as its head was pressed into the wall. “Is the chain short enough? Will it be able to move?”

“I don’t think so, my lord,” the guard answered.

Lord Teelo played with the whip, trying it out. “Good. Go fetch the healer– wait. I need – something sharp, something – to secure on its tail. See how it hides it? I need something it can’t hide from.”

The guard looked puzzled. He eased his hold in a test, and the creature threw its whole weight backwards, fighting the chains. They held. Kneeling, with its tail hidden and only back visible, it looked strikingly like a human. “Perhaps clothespins, my lord?” It wasn’t what he had in mind. What he wanted – it wasn’t that. Not this easy, tame solution.

“It would work,” he drew out. He would go to the smith when he had time. He had an idea, oh, that would be a genius idea. “Just this once."

He flexed his left arm and rubbed his right. It hurt as all deaths, but it had stopped bleeding. He failed to crack the whip the first time but managed it the second, inches from the creature’s back. The guard bowed, taking it as a sign to leave.

The creature mumbled and mumbled more, sounds a meaningless mush falling from its tongue. If Lord Teelo was generous, he could see it as an apology; he would not even entertain the possibility of giving in to it, of course.

The second crack was right by its ear. It flinched and curled up further but couldn't hide.

It wailed when the whip connected with its back – so loud, so quickly, taken by surprise. Lord Teelo bared his teeth in a smile and struck again, violent purple already flowering on the gray of its skin, and struck again without waiting – three, four, six, twelve hits in a row, as it flinched and writhed and cried out.

He paused afterwards, and saw as it tensed, first, its whole body shaking with the effort of breathing, hiccupping in what sounded almost like sobs. He waited, watching how it trembled more and more. He let it marinate in the anticipation, the fear coiling and coiling with no release, the stinging of its sore back growing as its patience ran thin.

When it raised its head, just barely, as if to look, the whip snapped through the air again.

It screamed out. He didn’t give it time to recover.

The lord hit it with no pattern, pausing and continuing at his leisure, until his arm grew heavy with pain and the creature nearly silent. Lord Teelo could only hear its labored breathing, air forced out of its body with every strike. Its back bloomed with purple that gave way to red when the skin opened, the new lines covering the rainbow pattern in an unstructured, repulsive mess.

Oh, he nearly pitied it, trembling pathetically in the corner. Then he rubbed his arm and the sharp pain was enough to remember why he didn’t.

He struck for the last time, lazily, with his left, and then a few more for a good measure. When a polite knock announced the guard’s return, he felt pleasantly tired, like after a good work out. He called out for the man to enter.

The guard did and the healer, an old woman the lord knew for most of his life, followed in. She looked the room over with stony, unreadable expression, and Lord Teelo met her gaze with a nice enough smile. “You’ve got your toy,” she stated and that was all the attention the creature got from her.

She made a quick enough work of the wounds: cleaned and bandaged them up after applying that miraculous numbing cream the lord appreciated since early childhood. The creature would appreciate it even more, he thought, glancing at the pathetic thing. It had shifted at some point, stretching its legs just a bit but keeping its head hidden. Its body shook violently, trembling so much it in itself looked tiring.

“Should I look it over?” the healer suggested, all business.

The lord huffed, “What would the point of a punishment be then?”

The woman looked him over with that annoying, unreadable gaze. “Call me whenever you change your mind,” she bowed and left when he dismissed her.

Lord Teelo tried the clothespins with interest, forcing the spring to coil and then letting it go softly around his finger, just a tad, until it started hurting. “Good enough,” he concluded finally and got up.

The creature flinched when his boots stopped by its form but didn’t try anything. “Poor thing,” he drew out and crouched, ran his fingers along its back lightly, brushing fingertips over the painful ridges of future bruises. Its breaths hitched, but it didn’t make a sound. “And all you needed was to not act like a brainless brat to avoid all this. You have no one but yourself to blame, silly thing,” he told it. It didn’t answer, shivering under his touch but not attempting anything stupid.

“But maybe you can learn,” he hummed and moved his hand down to where its tail started. It tensed even further, if it was possible at all. “Let’s just make sure the lesson sticks, huh?” It curled up even further as he tagged on its tail, releasing from under the creature’s body. He flickered it back and forth and rubbed between his fingers and was satisfied when it sobbed and shuddered but remained motionless otherwise.

“Like this, yes,” he muttered. With the softest touch of his second hand, he stoked its head. “But look at me now. Eyes on me,” It didn’t understand. He caught a fistful of its fur and tagged. “Eyes on me.”

Too drained to resist, it lifted its head as he guided it. “Eyes on me,” he demanded again, and it either guessed or truly learned – its gaze settled on him, focusing to the best of its ability – and, oh, what a pathetic mess it looked, eyes bloodshot and wet in ways he’d thought only a human's could be, dark lines from where it pressed into the floorboards marking its cheeks. There was something red around its mouth – did it bite itself, the poor thing?

Lord Teelo clicked his tongue, smiled softly and released its fur. It settled back instantly, curling up again. Its tail remained in his hands.

He picked up the first pin.

It must have assumed at first that he was just playing like he had been, – at least, it didn’t seem to tense up too much, nor expect the sharp pain when he released the spring around its tail. It shuddered, head whipping up, staring at him once again. He smiled. Picked up the second clothespin.

It tried to get its tail free – oh, it tried as much as it could without hurting him, but he tightened the grasp and played with the pins as it couldn’t help a new whimper, and hushed it and urged it to sit still. “That’s for you to remember the lesson better,” he told it pleasantly. It must have cried, body shaking again, and tried to kick just once, the movement stopped halfway through by a short chain.

Lord Teelo wondered how many pins would be good for it – should he go with the whole set the guard had brought? He settled on five, at the end, a nice even number not even halfway through what he had. He was feeling rather merciful and forgiving, and it sounded just so pathetic.

He called the guard in to urge it into the cage when it was done. It didn’t even try fighting, following the man's tagging and pushing until it was inside, drawing its limbs close and curling up to fully fit. Nearly immediately, its fingers itched towards the pins, human-like thumbs ready to work on the problem. Lord Teelo snapped his fingers to get its attention.

“No,” he said, words dripping with finality. He reached through the bars and tagged its tail outside. “The clothespins stay here for the night,” he told it. It probably didn’t understand – there was so little thought in its eyes. He let go of it hoped for its sake it understood what he meant. He didn’t want to have to punish it so soon for their lack of common language.

When he went to sleep, the shaky breaths and the rare clanging when it tried to settle more comfortable sounded like a lullaby to his ears.

In the morning, his arm stung mercilessly and unendingly, and no melodies of birds and gentle sunrays could make his mood better. He turned lazily, letting his eyes fall onto the cage. The creature was curled inside of it, eyes shut tight and ears flickering restlessly. Its tail fluttered too, freed at some point from the pins, one of its hands curling around it protectively.

Lord Teelo felt stuck between endearment and irritation. He moved and the cuts on his arm ached, and irritation won.

“Hey… you,” he called and realized he hadn’t come up with a name. He should think about it as some point, he decided grimly, and banished the thought of the last pet he’d named, back in childhood. That was a just a cat, a stupid spoilt creature with too much attitude. The lord remembered the way it looked, painted red and unmoving, after crossing one too many lines.

The creature didn’t move at his call, either. He picked up an extinguished candle from his bedside table and threw it towards the cage. “Hey!”

There was no reaction. With an undignified groan, he forced himself on his feet and towards the cage. He rattled the key across the bars, the way that always seemed to get the creature’s attention.

It didn’t react. It was outright ignoring him!

Had it learned nothing?!

He reached through the bars and tagged on its tail, finally getting some response in return – it flinched weakly and grimaced. Slowly, its eyes fluttered open, but didn’t settle on the lord. They looked as if through him, unfocused and dizzy, and a pang of worry cut through the just rage when they closed back and its chest heaved, struggling for breath.

Something was wrong.

He reached through the bars and towards its forehead, forgetting for a second it wasn’t a human. The skin under his fingers was blasting hot and sickly wet. It moved closer to his fingers, all but nuzzling against him.

Something was terribly, terribly wrong.

Updates every 7-10 days (depending on how much time I have and how obvious the poll result is) (unless something goes wrong and it takes me too weeks to get myself to write something. I'm so very sorry about the delay!)

@isikedmyself878, @fraugustends, @otterfrost, @fuchstastisch, @3-2-whump,

@the-lone-youth, @will-o-the-wips, @catnykit, @granny-aaravos, @mj-or-say10

Tell me to be tagged in the new parts!

#okay that was rather long. I hope it's fun and worth the read!#“he was planning to be kind” yeah no keep telling yourself that #hes kinda pathetic in a way i find really entertaining to write #hes just having a full on tantrum over getting his arm scratched. the creature's paying for this tho!#I would like to talk to you about consequences btw! the creature is resistant but not immortal. it takes a lot to kill it but you just migh #i think its more fun if you know that you can push it far enough for it to outright die. so ill have options leading to this possibility :>#see how much misery it can take before its body gives out :>#...but also: please dont kill it im having fun #we need a name for it btw. please tell me what you think it should be called. well get to a naming poll eventually but ill need ideas first #also sorry for the delay! the writing wasnt writing. i would swear its an exception but no. its normal for me. it will happen again. sorry!#btw if some of you thinks (and finds the idea interesting) that the lords tantrum kinda sounds out of proportion and like the reason for it #goes deeper than a few scratches. yeah. yeah it does. i may have given him some trauma. and i might explore it #if you think its a fun thing to explore. tell me if you do!#whump #whump writing #writing #interactive whump #interactive writing #choose your own adventure #pet whump #slavery whump #nonhuman whumpee #intimate whumper #carewhumper

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justawrites · 2 months ago

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(there's a poll at the bottom of this as I'd like some opinion)

this might sound absolutely insane but I... kinda wanna start God in a Godless Land (main fic, not the whole series) over. I'm not exactly happy with how I'm writing it and I suspect it's because I'm trying so hard to keep the chapters a "reasonable length" that I think my writing's degraded for it... and I figure if I do wanna restart I should do it before I get 100k words in

I was thinking this when I was struggling to write the last chapter but like... I think I was trying to move on from Riverwood too fast? Like logically I know it hasn't been fast but I dropped a lot of details and events I would've liked to write about before Riverwood got attacked for the sake of "chapter length" and "moving on with the story", and I. Kinda feel like I got them to Riverwood too fast.

And there were also things I wanted to write about in Riverwood- like I completely dropped a scene with Lamb and Narinder's daughters for the sake of "flow" which I really shouldn't have dropped because it was supposed to come back later but it just didn't feel like it had a place and now I am. Sitting here wondering why the fuck I did that, because?? that conversation is??? Really super fucking important later on wHY DID I drop it???? I was just. Trying to usher them out so fast that I completely forgot that there were reasons I should have taken my time.

.... So I might start over. For my sake AND the story's sake, bc I think I got so hung up on chapter lengths and "moving the story along" that I've, ironically, written a good chunk of Nothing At All and the story feels stunted for it. Like, I could've written so much more about the Lantern Festival and the Lamb and Bishops seeing this completely different culture in this completely different land really alive and thriving, despite everything. But then I basically bulldoze through the Lantern Festival to get to Narinder and Lamb's little confrontation and the attack after it.

I could've done. So much more with the adventure leading up to Riverwood and the whole Riverwood section, but I didn't. Because I wanted to push the story on, but the story is. Really suffering for that.

I've just reread Death Comes Home to Stay and am rereading Rise of the New Faith right now and, legitimately, they feel like much fuller stories than God in a Godless Land despite literally being chopped up snapshots of a bigger story taking place over two hundred years. Like, my writing just feels better in them than God in a Godless Land.

Also I feel very weird about Narinder's reasoning for leaving his literal ten year old child in a sixteen and nineteen year old (neither of whom are adults by Arcadia's standards)'s care, and I much prefer the reasoning I had given him during the planning stage of the fic... Don't get me wrong, Narinder choosing to go for the sake of revenge? VERY in character, even for godless!Narinder. Leaving his ten year old behind when he KNOWS he could (perma!!)die for this, just for a chance at revenge? That is where I feel like this falls apart, because godless!Narinder's love for his family FAR outweighs his desire for revenge. Like, if he just wants the chromatic Crown's cult wiped out he could just give the Lamb and Bishops something to prove they know him and people throughout Arcadia would be willing to help them?? He wouldn't need to go with them?? He KNOWS the Lamb and Bishops will wipe the floor with that cult?? Like why did I go that route instead of the original route. Hello. What.

So yeah. I might just... start the main fic over and let chapters be as long as they want. I'm better at writing in arcs than chapters and I think it's really showing, and as much as people are enjoying it if I'm not enjoying it then I think I need to make a change. Writing is supposed to be fun, I like writing, but I'm just. Not having fun right now. It would mean longer time between updates but I think those updates would be more worth it, because right now it all feels so... I dunno. Rushed. Disjointed. The biggest problem is I'm not having fun writing it, except for specific Scenes™, and I also don't feel like I'm giving those scenes enough to hit the way I want them to... But I write for fun so if I'm not having fun it's just. Work. I've literally had a doc titled "08" up for more than 24 hours now and it's completely blank. I haven't written a single word yet, and usually I'd have at least a scene done already.

Anyway... the question is, if I do start over, what should I do with the current God in a Godless Land? Delete it? Leave it up with a note? Remove it from the series page or leave it there? ... What do y'all think?

#Justa Thoughts #god in a godless land au #cotl fics #I have been thinking it the last few chapters but I am just really not happy with how it's coming out #it's making writing hard #so I think I want to just start over #Like I'm rereading all the parts I have so far and DCHtS and RotNF are MUCH more fun to read than GiaGL??#idk #I want to start over but idk what to do about the version I have now #should I delete it or leave it up so people can read it if they want?#I despise updating with just an author's note so idek how to let everyone reading know I'm restarting #sorry y'all I am just so. dissatisfied with GiaGL as it is now #long post #poll

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