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The kitten stares at Lord Arlecchino, all fluffed fur and pressed-back ears as Father proposes their mission.
In itself, it’s simple intelligence retrieval. The Château de la Tromperie is known for its high-class patronage and costumed waiters, and tonight a certain suspected trafficker will be dining with his business partners. Lynette is young and pretty, but most importantly she is marked as unhuman. Her task is quite easy. Enter the restaurant as one of the many costumed waiters, attract the man’s attention, and ascertain his and his partner’s home addresses.
Rather, it should be easy.
Because the costume Lord Arlecchino sets on the desk between them makes her tremble. It’s not skimpy by any means, covering what needed to be, but it is revealing. It begins just above her breasts and ends mid-thigh, with a striped faux-fur coat, and worst of all there is a collar.
She is dressing… as a cat.
”If you succeed, you will be given more missions along this line of work- that is to say, tracking down and eliminating these traffickers. Is that understood?”
Arlecchino watches her with those odd eyes, and Lynette still does not know how to refuse.
“Yes, Father.”
“If you understand.” Father stands. Paces around the desk in two long strides, and now they tower over her seated figure. They crouch, kneading her ears the same way they did that night.
“Then why are you afraid?”
For the first time, Lynette pulls away from them. She presses her ears down. “I am not afraid.” This is a lie. She can smell her own fear permeating the cinnamon-scented room, and furthermore, her fluffed fur and twitching ears all but give her away.
Father examines her with cold eyes. Several minutes pass in this fashion, Lord Arlecchino crouched in front of her, staring intently into her eyes, Lynette frozen and half pulled away.
“Then what do you find issue with?” they eventually ask.
Lynette shakes her head.
Father sighs. Stands in a fluid motion and seats herself across the desk. “Put on the costume. You will arrive at the Chateau in approximately two hours- let us ensure everything is correct.”
Lynette disrobes there. Lord Arlecchino has seen her naked and bloodied and declawed the same night she rescued her. She doesn't mind if they see her, and at the moment, modesty is a waste of time. She has two hours- two hours to put on this horrible outfit that reminds her so terribly of that man. The people he held in cages as she passed, some naked and scarred, some unmarred and dressed in fanciful regalia. Each one of them sagged in the same posture, head down, shoulders slumped, and each bore a silver collar clipped tight around their throats.
He’d had her pinned down that night and personally attached hers. She remembers.
She realizes she has been holding the outfit, kneeling there in her undergarments. Lynette shakes her head, runs her hand down her still-fluffed fur. She is more than the frightened kitten she was that night, surely. It is time to act like it.
Lynette begins with the bodysuit. It’s a silken off-black that straps snug around her body, ending just below her butt. The elastic cuts into her thighs, and she feels her nerves responding. She will be numb before the evening ends.
She looks up. Stares at herself in the mirror, a scared little girl with a kitten’s ears, and her Father’s silent examination behind her.
The skirt next. It’s less a skirt, per se, and more a tutu. The bottom layers fluff out around her thighs, an itchy sensation that sets off her feline senses. She dislikes the feeling, tugging at the edges of it until she’s sure the ends will not reach further. She inserts the triangular foam flaps into her bodysuit, an illusion of the breasts she lacks. Faces the mirror once more.
Archons. Once more she plays the part of an object. She cannot deny her shaking breaths.
“Well?” prompts Arlecchino. “Continue.”
She shrugs on the heavy coat, which settles around her waist, emphasizing her lithe figure. Its tiger stripes almost feel comical. Here she is, playing grownup’s games without any stripes and claws of her own. Playing pretend. It feels fitting.
Last is the collar.
The cold click of metal around her throat shocks her silent as it closes, clipping some of her skin with it. It pinches at the sides of her throat, impairing the blood flow. She becomes dizzy almost immediately. The man leers down at her, and all she remembers of him is shadow and eyes as black as onyx and the teeth of a predator. The last thing she sees is a long strip of cloth bearing down towards her
She picks it up. Holds it in shaking hands, feeling so very afraid.
His naked body presses against hers, practically crushing her chest. He clutches her hand in his massive one, wielding some metal tool. Her furred hands have been picked clean, the skin below stinging and bloody, and now she feels the metal grip her claws.
Lynette can’t speak. She hasn’t made a sound since she was cast away like an unruly housecat. She has been petrified, and even as the man leans himself closer to her head with that wolfish grin, she cannot move. She cannot even beg.
Not even when the first claw is torn from her flesh.
“Lynette. Lynette, do you hear me?”
Her eyes are burning. Her chest heaves in and out with gasps she can’t control, and her body trembles so violently. She drops the dreaded collar, wraps her hands around her stomach. Closes her eyes.
Her hands hurt bone-deep. She has been deprived of her only defense in this life, for all the good it did her anyways. The man sets aside his tools with a click and down at her. He slides his monstrous hands over her skin, digging into her hair, pulling her ears, making these sounds that she will never forget. In that moment Lynette does not beg for rescue or escape or a blessing. She asks the gods for death.
Her fingers dig into her soft flesh. She feels lightheaded, a bitter taste in the back of her throat. She remembers, as she always will, and it is overwhelming and she wishes she could breathe. She wishes she could be stronger than that stupid little girl who didn’t fight back but here she is. Shattered in pieces on the floor next to that collar, and that’s all it is, a collar, and she still can’t get it together. She is no better than before. She deserves this. She deserves to go back there, for him to finish what he started. She should not have been rescued.
“Lynette.”
An ice-cold hand grips her chin, and she shrieks. Snaps her head away so fast that her neck twinges. Scrambles away, blindly clawing at the air, summoning wind to cloud the air, to aid her escape, to get her out-
Icy arms wrap around her middle as she runs, pulling her back as easily as a she-cat picks up their kitten. Lynette thrashes as hard as she can, forgetting every instance of training, of practice, even her Vision goes silent as she fights against these steel arms, sobbing. She can’t go back. She lied earlier. She might deserve to, but archons, Lynette will kill herself first.
“Lynette,” Arlecchino murmurs. “Lynette. It is only me here. You are safe.” They pull her into her lap. “You are safe,” they repeat to deaf ears.
“Let go!” She screams senselessly until her throat is tight, all the while Arlecchino holds her, never digging into her skin.
“It is only me, Lynette,” they say over and over, and even as Lynette fights her, they anchor her to this room, this moment, and somehow she begins to remember where she is.
Arlecchino must feel her muscles relaxing, her shallow wheezing, because she loosens her grip. Hovers a hand over her lungs. “Breathe,” they instruct quietly, and it cuts through every sound in her skull. “In. One, two, three… out… three, two, one… in…”
Lynette blindly follows. She forces herself to breathe slowly, feels Arlecchino’s chest move up and down in time to her counting. It anchors her.
“I’m sorry, Father,” she manages.
Arlecchino stops counting, and sheer terror seizes her. They must be furious Lynette spent so much time whining.
They release Lynette and turn her around, gripping her chin and turning it upward so she can better see Arlecchino’s face. “Lynette,” Father says slowly. “I am not upset.”
“I did not… ” she pauses for breath, feeling oddly lightheaded. “...finish my task.”
“Your well-being is more important than a singular outfit. If you are not able to wear it, there is still time to retrieve another.” Father lets go of her chin and gently cups her face. “Where were you just now, Lynette?”
“...That night. When he…” Lynette can’t help but look away. She is ashamed of all the time she has wasted. “I can’t forget it.”
“You never will,” Father says matter-of-factly. “One cannot simply forget such a callous disregard for human rights. But you will move on, and you will heal.” Their eyes linger on their abyss-cursed hands, the black markings that coil up their arms. “That I can assure you of.”
You will heal.
Lynette buries her head into her Father’s chest and bursts into tears.