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Darumi’s taken to sleeping in Hiruko’s arms at night. Her mistress’ arms are strong and they grip her tightly all night long, squeezing tight around her waist as a constant reminder that she’ll never be able to escape. Hiruko is so strong. So powerful and intelligent that Darumi can never hope to compare, and just being allowed to be her dog is a blessing in itself.
It feels good in Hiruko’s arms. Painfully good. The kind of good that she can’t remember ever feeling before, and that makes her heart hurt for lack of warmth and her tears well up and her nightmares boil, raging away in her sleep and trying to draw her back into her memories until she wakes up, her screams muffled by Hiruko’s hand and ugly tears streaming down her face.
“It’s okay.” Hiruko says, her voice low and gentle and so much warmer than Darumi ever knew it could be before she was tamed and claimed. “You’re safe.”
But that only makes the pain worse, and Darumi writhes desperately against Hiruko’s grip, she tries to scream to no avail. Hiruko is an immovable object, a set of chains wrapped around her from which she can never escape, and will never want to. She’s not sure whether she’s better or worse off than she was before, but she is sure that if Hiruko were to throw her away all she’d have left is to die in the killing game.
Eventually Darumi runs out of energy and goes limp, stops lashing out like the animal she is and lets Hiruko takes care of her. Wipes the tears from her eyes, then cleans her face with a hot washcloth, getting rid of the sticky, snotty remnants left behind.
“Are you going to punish me, mistress?” Darumi asks. She’s not sure what she wants the answer to that question to be.
Hiruko presses the mouth of a water bottle to Darumi’s lips and makes her drink, all while her gaze bores into Darumi’s soul, making her feel like a frog in the middle of being dissected. She was thirsty, she realizes belatedly, as the bottle empties and most of her thirst subsides.
“No.” Hiruko decrees, and Darumi lets loose a sigh of relief she hadn’t realized she was holding in. Hiruko lifts her up off the bed and sets her down in her lap, one hand wrapping around her waist and the other resting on her knee. “I’m going to take care of you, and then we’ll go back to sleep.”
“Yes mistress.” All the tension drains out of Darumi’s body like water. She doesn’t have to do anything else now but feel, and there’s nothing more relaxing than that. Hiruko’s breasts are pressing against her back, covered by underwear but still soft and warm and reassuring. The hand on her knee is just rubbing, slow and gentle as Darumi adjusts to the feelings that come with that contact.
“You’re such a good girl.” Hiruko murmurs, nibbling gently at Darumi’s neck. Her nails scrape gently against her skin, leaving thin red trails and goosebumps in their wake. “So obedient. So docile.”
Darumi frowns. “But-“
“It’s not your fault.” Hiruko hisses virulently, such absolute certainty in her voice that Darumi could never dream of objecting. She might be talking about more than just nightmares. “You are perfect.”
At a loss for words, Darumi just breathes. Exists within Hiruko’s grasp, time vanishing from her awareness. It’s peaceful here. She belongs to Hiruko, so she doesn’t have to think about anything but doing what Hiruko says.
When she falls asleep again, there are no more nightmares waiting for her.